Talk:Albert Einstein/Archive 6

message: In Feb 2006, the talk page of Albert Einstein filled up with a discussion of an alleged relativity priority dispute.  Mainstream historians say this has been put to rest; others hotly disagree, as became very evident.  To free up Talk:Albert Einstein, I moved the very long discussion to this archive.  We encourage all concerned to confine further argumentation about the controversy to Talk:relativity priority dispute, an article created to describe this controversy according to Wikipedia NPOV rules.  Thanks in advance for your cooperation! ---CH 09:43, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 1

message: A recent addition suggests that Gottfried Leibniz anticipated Einstein's relativity. I'm pretty sure that's not a serious claim. If it is, though, please discuss it in Talk:Gottfried Leibniz. In the meantime, I'll remove the probable joke. The Rod 05:20, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I took that out of the intro paragraph.  It doesn't belong there, breaking up the flow of the paragraph that introduces the subject of this article.  Assuming it's true (I've no reason to believe otherwise), it really belongs in the article about relativity, or maybe the section about relativity here.  But not up in Einstein's face, as it were, in the paragraph introducing Einstein in his own article.  — Kbh3rdtalk 19:32, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Relativity ''anticipated by [[Leibniz]]'' claim

message: Since the lone ranger promoting the Hilbert/Poincare viewpoint simply won't give up, I suggest we take a poll, so that the community (and the logs) can show that there IS a commonly held view that SHOULD be the one given in the introduction. Sign up below!
Of course polls can't decide what the facts are. But they DO show pretty clearly the majority opinion among the Wikipedia crowd on how to evaluate those facts.
--Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I adapted the formulation of the intro to the known facts. For now I left "author" of GRT; but in view of Hilbert, that might be considered POV as it could be seen as suggesting that Einstein was the sole contributor.  Harald88 07:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Let's have a poll on Hilbert & Poincare!

message: * --Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative 1A: [[Albert Einstein]] should have main credit for Special Relativity

message: * Lucidish 18:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative 1C: Both Poincare and Einstein should receive equal (or near-equal) credit

message: *E4mmacro 21:19, 5 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative 1D: Poincare-Lorentz and Einstein/Minkowski should receive equal (or near equal) credit

message: * --Alvestrand 16:29, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative 2A: [[Albert Einstein]] should have main credit for General Relativity

message: * --User:De kludde
: I adapted the formulation of the intro to the known facts. For now I left "author" of GRT; but in view of Hilbert, that might be considered POV as it could be seen as suggesting that Einstein was the sole contributor.  Harald88 07:47, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Alternative 2C: Einstein (and possibly Grossmann) and Hilbert should receive equal (or near equal) credit

message: The link to Unified Field Theory is incorrect. It links to GUT, which is something later, and different. I think the former was an attempt to unify gravity and EM. green 65.88.65.217 05:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually there's a point here .... Unified Field Theory as Einstein imagined it is not necessarily the same thing as a GUT. But the link is useful in context. I moved the link to the term "unification of the forces" a little later in the paragraph. --Alvestrand 05:26, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's improved. I added one sentence for further clarification. Check it out. green 65.88.65.217 05:47, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Institute for Advanced Study

message: I would like to know from the defenders of Einstein's cause what they think about a letter from Einstein to Heinrich Zangger written on November 26, a day after Einstein submitted (if I am correct) Hilbert's field equations as his own:
:Die Theorie ist von unvergleichlicher Schönheit. Aber nur ein Kollege hat sie wirklich verstanden und der eine sucht sie auf geschickte Weise zu 'nostrifizieren' ***. Ich habe in meinen persönlichen Erfahrungen kaum je die Jämmerlichkeit besser kennen gelernt wie gelegentlich dieser Theorie *** 
:The theory is of incomparable beauty. However, only one colleague has really understood it, and he is trying to 'appropriate' it *** in a clever way. In my personal experiences I have rarely come to know the wretchedness of mankind better than while developing this theory ***
:: What do the astericks above signify? Thanks, green 65.88.65.217 23:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The asterisks are placeholders for omitted portions of text.De kludde 23:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You say the printer's proofs. Did Hilbert's published paper refer to Einstein? 220.237.80.193 02:38, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  An excellent question! green 65.88.65.217 02:54, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

text: I really must read additional analyses of this issue before reaching a definitive conclusion. However, istm pretty clear that we would have no GR were it not for Einstein. He was the prime mover and had been for around 10 years. As I indicated above, he gave several lectures at Goettingen in 1915 which Hilbert almost certainly attended, giving the state of his research and its problems. I see them as a "heads-up" for Hilbert, to catalyze his work (and Noether's) as a collaborator -- someone that Einstein solicited when his theory was near completion. It would not surprise me if Hilbert solved the field equations first, given that that was what he was tasked to do. Nonetheless, I think the theory owes its existence to Einstein. As for the 1905 paper, one of its original features is that Einstein derived the LT's from the two postulates of relativity, not from physical hypotheses related to an ether. There is no evidence this was done by Poincare. If this is an incorrect assessment, then someone should be able to produce a link to Poincare's paper where he does so. But so far, there are no links, only repetitious bombastic claims. Poincare was already a very famous fellow in 1905, when Einstein was an unknown. If Einstein had simply reproduced Poincare's results, it is certainly odd -- indeed egregiously implausible -- that the scientific establishment didn't notice Poincare's achievement and defaulted to Einstein. green 65.88.65.217 23:01, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Einstein's letter to Zangger

message: YES, Einstein's (Sept)1905 paper was identical in content to Poincare's (June)1905 paper and with no new interpretations, and not a single footnote, PLAGIARISM,  by any definition. 69.22.98.146 21:22, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is relevant to plagarism charges that Einstein 1905 paper was submitted on 30 June 1905 (19-21 days after the appearance of Poincare's short paper in Paris). But "identical in content"? Poincare's 1905 paper was 4.25 pages long. How long was Einstein's 1905 paper - considerably more than 4.25 pages? Einstein's paper had, for example, the relativistic Doppler formula, Poincare's 1905 did not. Einstein took a different approach to the force on a moving charge. Poincare followed Lorentz, the moving charge was moving relative to both the rest frame and the moving frame. Einstein needed to only have the charge at rest in the moving frame. Just another content difference. E4mmacro 07:44, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To 69. If your purpose is to denigrate Einstein, you would have a much better chance of saying that he worked from Lorentz (1904), just as Poincare did, but did not credit Lorentz the way Poincare did. The idea that Einstein had the opportunity from 9 or 11 June (when Poincare's 41/4 page paper appeared) to 30 June (when Einstein submitted his paper to Annalen der Physik) to plagarise Poincare's paper (published in Paris) seems far-fetched. On the other hand Einstein could have had plenty of time to read Lorentz 1904, the acknowledged expert on electrodynamics at the time (I am not saying he did). It seems your pro-Poincare stance stops you taking the best anti-Einstein stance available to you.  Irony is so ironic :) E4mmacro 11:17, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Green are you re-writing the article ?  GOD HELP US. You know nothing at all of physics !  ZERO ! 69.22.98.146 23:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: To Green. Your rewrite (above is very fair and balanced. Well done. Will it survive? Who knows. E4mmacro 10:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Surely you jest. It keeps getting reverted even though it's completely in accord with the historical facts! What I wrote isn't even controversial (except from an obsessed, anti-Einstein pov). green 65.88.65.217 20:06, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Green you are a new-comer here, E4 agreed long ago that the two papers are identical. - And in the section above E4 is talking about a different 1905 paper, so Green please bug off will you. 69.22.98.146 00:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is news to me. I think the content of Poincare 1905 is different from Einstein 1905 (the relativity paper submitted 30 june 1905) (see below). Maybe you are confused. I remember you told me that Poincare's 5 page paper of June 1905 is identical in content to Poincare's 60+ page paper of 1906 (written in July 1905, published in 1906).  I merely thanked you for making your view clear - if you thought I agreed with your view I apologise - I was maintaining a tactful silence. E4mmacro 07:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  To 64: It depends what you mean by the Lorentz transformations. If you mean only x',y',z',t' = f(x,y,x,t) then Poincare did not derive them at all. He got them from Lorentz (but he used a slightly new notation and re-arranged them algebraically, and named them the Lorentz transformations). Unknown to Poincare the LT had beed published in 1897 by Joseph Larmor. Poincare (1905) pointed out that these transformations formed a group and satisfied the principle of relativity. If by LT you mean x',y',z',t' = f(x,y,x,t) plus something extra, the way Maxwell's equations transform, then Lorentz made at least one mistake in the second bit, which Poincare corrected. Poincare does seem to have been guided by the Principle of Relativity in the way he corrected the mistake. E4mmacro 11:07, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text:  To 64: You also ask why was an unknown like Einstein given accolades, when a famous man like Poincare was not? I think the answer is that generally the theory was at first considered to be Lorentz's theory (not Poincare's not Einstein's). Some like Planck noticed Einstein, but Poincare consistently referred to it as the "Lorentz's new mechanics"; Poincare never claimed it was his theory. In the 1912/3 edition of a German book book "The principle of relativity" the author list was Lorentz, Einstein and others (with no Poincare). When GR was confirmed in 1919 (Eddington's eclipse experiments)  Einstein became world famous and the de facto "owner" of relativity in the public mind. The later editions of "The principle of relativity" had the author list as Einstein and others. Anyone new to the theory who tried to read GR was naturally puzzled and then tried Einstein's 1905 paper which was easier to understand. Since that paper had not a single reference (which was a bit lax of Einstein and the journal, did they not have referees in 1905?), it appeared to readers in the 1920s that the SR came from nowhere, with perhaps a lingering bafflement as to why the principle equations were called the Lorentz transformations. I think I got this interpretation of the history from Herbert Dingle. It sounds plausible to me. E4mmacro 11:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Green please telephone E4 and let him fill you in. 69.22.98.146 00:23, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Would you rather we tell the truth ? 69.22.98.146 00:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Claim that Poincare's 1905 paper (4 1/4 pages) is identical in content to Einstein's much longer paper 1905

message: I draw your attention to the following excerpt, especially the last sentence.
Max Planck had made the formal assumption that energy was quantized in deriving his black-body radiation law, published in 1901, but had considered this to be no more than a mathematical trick.  The photoelectric effect thus provided a simple confirmation of Max Planck's hypothesis of quanta.
Can I suggest:
Max Planck had made the formal assumption that energy was quantized in deriving his black-body radiation law, published in 1901, but had considered this to be no more than a mathematical trick.  The photoelectric effect was thus afforded a simple confirmation by virtue of Max Planck's 'trick'.
That preserves a relationship in the subject of the two sentences, without the absurdity of implying a mathematical trick is a theory.
There's other examples of this sort of hack in the text:  it's not looking too good right now.  And after having read this talk page I can see there is a determined effort to revise the mainstream history.  Maybe y'all should do something about this--wouldn't want to be in your shoes trying to sort out the good from the malicious, but that's where you are.
On a second read I understand the intent of the author... still, it's clumsy
168.253.132.188 07:12, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: My understanding is that Planck assumed something a little different. He assumed that a vibrating system (the atoms in the walls of the black-body container) could change their energy only by a discrete amount. That is, he assumed the vibrational states of the oscillators were quantized, so the energy of oscillation of the matter could be jh\nu, for integer values of j only. He did NOT assume that the electromagnetic energy in the black-body container was quantized. It is a slightly different thing to say energy was absorbed or emitted from the oscillators in discrete amounts, those amounts depending on a physical property of the oscillator (the matter) - its natural frequency \nu. My understanding is that Einstein (in the photo-electric paper) turned it around, or extended it to the radiation, introducing the photon at the same time. Well that is what I think I was first taught, anyway. E4mmacro 07:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be well informed about this. But it still means that Planck did not consider his quantum hypothesis to be mere mathematical trick, as the original (biased) Wikipedia article claims.De kludde 17:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Have they worked out yet on this page that Licorne is 66/69? E4mmacro 20:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It hasn't been mentioned. It's an intelligence test of sorts, and if one passes, the individual is assured that his/her IQ is above 61. LOL. green 65.88.65.217 02:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Malice or poor prose?

message: :My understanding is that Planck assumed something a little different. He assumed that a vibrating system (the atoms in the walls of the black-body container) could change their energy only by a discrete amount. That is, he assumed the vibrational states of the oscillators were quantized, so the energy of oscillation of the matter could be jh\nu, for integer values of j only. He did NOT assume that the electromagnetic energy in the black-body container was quantized. It is a slightly different thing to say energy was absorbed or emitted from the oscillators in discrete amounts, those amounts depending on a physical property of the oscillator (the matter) - its natural frequency \nu. My understanding is that Einstein (in the photo-electric paper) turned it around, or extended it to the radiation, introducing the photon at the same time. Well that is what I think I was first taught, anyway. E4mmacro 07:26, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may be well informed about this. But it still means that Planck did not consider his quantum hypothesis to be mere mathematical trick, as the original (biased) Wikipedia article claims.De kludde 17:15, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have they worked out yet on this page that Licorne is 66/69? E4mmacro 20:34, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It hasn't been mentioned. It's an intelligence test of sorts, and if one passes, the individual is assured that his/her IQ is above 61. LOL. green 65.88.65.217 02:46, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Quantum hypotheses

message: The Intro is clearly inaccurate, but no one can re-write it without making Einstein look like what he really was, a  plagiarist. -- So the next best thing would be to keep the politically correct crap in the Intro to please those who are religiously attached to the myth, but to have a link FROM THE INTRO to a Priority Page for those who want hard facts and dates. Licorne 14:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Link to Priority Page directly FROM THE INTRO

message: The Intro still needs re-wording to make it factual.  Any suggestions ?  -- Problems are that it was David Hilbert who first published the Field Equation which completed the Theory of General Relativity and which legitimately gives Hilbert rightful claim to the theory, and Henri Poincare completed the Special Theory of Relativity  three months before Einstein.  -- So how  do  we  re-write  the Intro without calling Einstein a plagiarist ?  Any suggestions ?   Licorne 03:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the Hilbet issue is adequately dealt with in note 9. Paul August ☎ 05:01, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It affects the Intro. -- I  strongly  disagree with the Intro, due to Hilbert's first discovery. Licorne 05:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

text: That's wrong: the article on general relativity is wrong on this point too. Einstein explained very clearly (read intro 1916, it's online) that GRT contained a theory of gravitation, it wasn't itself a theory of gravitation. But in the end only that part was retained in full. Harald88 21:36, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Taking Suggestions

message: A small point: did someone have a specific objection to the statement that Einstein became world famous after the 1919 eclipse expedition (rather than the 1915 paper) or did it just get changed back as part of the revert wars? I think "world famous" means having the NYTimes write the headlines shown in the article. I doubt there were similar headlines in 1915 when a theory was published in a germany language scientific journal. In other words: "After a dramatic prediction of general relativity, the bending of light by the sun's gravity, was confirmed in 1919, Einstein became world-famous ..." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by E4mmacro (talk • contribs) 20:02, February 14, 2006  (UTC)
YES  the  New York media  created  the  Einstein Myth after the eclipse.  Poincare had died  in  1912, and after the war no one would defend the German Hilbert because he no doubt had put babies on bayonets.  Licorne 20:21, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Famous in 1915 or 1919?

message: There are several quotes from Hilbert which seem to support Thorne's view that Hilbert gave credit for the theory to Einstein. Both of the following quotes are given in both Phillip Frank's, Einstein, His Life and Times, Da Capo Press; Rev edition (May 1, 1989),  , p. 206 and Constance Reid's, Hilbert, Springer; 1 edition (April 19, 1996) , p. 142
*Every boy in the streets of our mathematical Gottingen understands more about four-dimensional geometry than Einstein. Yet, despite that, Einstein did the work and not the mathematicians.
*Do you know why Einstein said the most original and profound things about space and time that have been said in our generation? Because he had learnt nothing about all the philosophy and mathematics of time and space.
On the same page Reid goes on to say:
* To Hilbert, The beauty of Einstein's theory lay in its great geometrical abstraction; and when the time arrived for the awarding of the third Bolyai Prize in 1915, he recommended that it go to Einstein "for the high mathematical spirit behind his achievements
J J O'Connor and E F Robertson, Hilbert referring to the Corry, Renn and Stachel paper Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute, Science 278 (14 November, 1997) write:
*Many have claimed that in 1915 Hilbert discovered the correct field equations for general relativity before Einstein but never claimed priority. The article [11] however, shows that this view is in error. In this paper the authors show convincingly that Hilbert submitted his article on 20 November 1915, five days before Einstein submitted his article containing the correct field equations. Einstein's article appeared on 2 December 1915 but the proofs of Hilbert's paper (dated 6 December 1915) do not contain the field equations.
:As the authors of [11] write:-
::In the printed version of his paper, Hilbert added a reference to Einstein's conclusive paper and a concession to the latter's priority: "The differential equations of gravitation that result are, as it seems to me, in agreement with the magnificent theory of general relativity established by Einstein in his later papers". If Hilbert had only altered the dateline to read "submitted on 20 November 1915, revised on [any date after 2 December 1915, the date of Einstein's conclusive paper]," no later priority question would have arisen.
Paul August ☎ 06:23, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Paul you are wrong, Hilbert said LATER regarding Einstein's work. Licorne 14:08, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In sci.physics.research and sci.physics.relativity, recently evidence was cited for the allegation that Hilbert was fooled into thinking that Einstein had priority, while all evidence shows the contrary (I now have no time to elaborate on this, I go on vacation, sorry). Harald88 06:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Licorne, you might want to check out Philipp Frank. --Alvestrand 14:25, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some quotes 

message: Mr. Anon69, in the discussion above you claim that "Einstein's solution for Brownian Motion was copied line for line from Smoluchowski." Could you give more details? Which paper(s) of Smoluchowski did Einstein copy from? Did Smoluchowski have E[x_t^2]=\frac{kT}{3\pi\eta r}t, the equation used by Jean Baptiste Perrin to determine k?
I attended a conference in Paris about three years ago by Jean-Paul Auffray, with Jules Leveugle, they both were aware of this fact that Einstein copied line for line Smoluchowski's equations for Brownian motion.  If  you contact  them  I'm sure they have your precise answer. Max Planck credited Smoluchowski with the solution of Brownian motion, not Einstein.  This is on page 258 of Jules Leveugle's magnificent book at the Ecole Polytechnique, for consultation.  Copies of Leveugle's book are in other major Physics libraries in Paris, for consultation, I believe at the Institut Poincare, and probably the Bibliotheque Nationale.  It  is Leveugle's  unabridged  book  Poincare et la Relativite: Question sur la Science.   I believe Jean-Paul Auffray speaks perfect English,  Jules  Leveugle  reads  several  languages including English.   Licorne 03:52, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Einstein, Smoluchowski and Brownian Motion

message: The Talk:Priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories page seems to be a better place than here to continue priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories. I suggest, therefore, moving the discussions to that talk page. Does everyone agree to such a move? If anyone disagrees with such a move, I will open a straw poll with a one week deadline and options similar to the following:
:*Current and subsequent discussion of priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories will move from Talk:Albert Einstein to Talk:Priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories. Only a short summary of and a link to that discussion will remain here.
:*Discussion of priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories may continue on Talk:Albert Einstein.
Note, the poll is not open, since a consensus would be preferable. Please do not vote yet, because if we do have to resort to such a poll, I will want some input on the best wording of the options. The Rod 21:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think this would be a great move. And despite what Licorne says below, I think the term "priority dispute" is exactly right - different people argue different viewpoints, both inside and outside Wikipedia, which makes it a dispute. --Alvestrand 22:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See HARALD's statement above, he says the page needs re-writing. -- Harald has more intellectual  integrity  than all of you put together.  -- Wait for Harald to get back here. Licorne 23:13, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Move priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories

message: This is not a priority dispute.  The three blatant contradictions listed above are more than that.  We all know Hilbert published GR first, the published record is clear.  What needs be done is to correct the wording of the article to make it consistent, regarding the three contradictions listed above. -- Wait till Harald returns, he is the only  person halfway intelligent there amoungst you all. -- Harald acknowledges there is a problem with the wording, just wait for him to get back. --Licorne 22:28, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: This is Not a Priority Dispute - Wait for Harald

message: Does anyone have a quote for the source of the name "relativity" for the Special Relativity theory?
The History of special relativity article says:
:The original title for Einstein's paper translates from the German as "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". Max Planck suggested the term "relativity" to highlight the notion of transforming the laws of physics between observers moving relative to one another, and the term 'Special' was later given to it by Einstein in order to distinguish it from the general theory of relativity.
But that article is light on citing sources. --Alvestrand 09:09, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: actually History of special relativity claims that the term was introduced to physics by Galileo, so the statute of copyrights seems to have expired on it. But I'm interested in finding a reference for who attached it to the STR. --Alvestrand 18:03, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Poincare used the phrase "Principle of relativity motion" a number of times from 1900-194 when discussing Lorentz's work. He sometimes means it is Newton's principle, he sometimes means what we now call the principle of relativity. i.e he was wondering whether electro-magnetics violated the principle of relative motion and was interested in Lorentz's work which kept rescuing the principle, but he thought perhaps Lorentz was trying to hard - "too many hypotheses". In 1904, (St Louis conference) when he was discussing the principle results of Lorentz 1904 he used "The principle of Relativity" since by then Lorentz had produced a theory which obeyed it exactly, well Poincare noticed a small mistake later. (If we couldn't see that Poincare was discussing Lorentz from the 1904 paper itself, he mentions this to Lorentz in his first letter to Lorentz 1905 - I mention this because Poincare-only fans never mention that Poincare 1904 was discussing Lorentz 1904). E4mmacro 21:36, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

text: standard question: reference for above statement? --Alvestrand 13:34, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It is there, you can look it up if you are really interested, Lorentz did say it, it should be in Keswani.-- Why are you so interested in Lorentz' quote ?   -- I  can  get it  myself  if  you  have  a real need for  it ?  why ?  -- Look in Keswani I believe he has it, amoungst many others.  --Licorne 14:37, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It should probably be obvious by now, but I don't believe a word you say when you're quoting without naming your source - and especially I don't believe that the words say what you claim they say when they are read in context - see the Kip Thorne debate, for example. If you give a book for which I can find the ISDN number and the page you're quoting from, I may believe you. --Alvestrand 14:59, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't believe a word of yours there son.  -- I have been proved correct on everything.  -- You are simply in a learning process. --  Thorne's quote is flatly contradicted by MEINER THEORIE, now is it not, there son.  -- You want a quote on Lorentz ? For what ? Your personal curiosity ? I am not your secretary, you go look in Keswani it is there, son. -- Licorne 15:21, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: By my count, you're five years older than me. Hardly a reason to call me "son".... and you're the one who makes the extraordinary claims, you're the one who bears the burden of proof. And so far, I haven't found one point you've been proved *right* on.... I do accept that you don't seem to have changed your mind on a single point based on the discussion, but that's not the same thing. --Alvestrand 15:30, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I am the teacher, you are the ignorant student.  -- IF I feel like it I'll put Lorentz' precise reference here just to make a complete FOOL out of you there son, but frankly, you're not worth it. -- Licorne 15:32, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source of name "relativity"? 

message: I've opened a Request for Comments about the editing behavior of User:Licorne. It can be viewed at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Licorne, and those participating in this are encouraged to contribute as they see fit. --Fastfission 17:29, 17 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC

message: This article is already  too long.  Folk keep adding new information.  Is it  time  to make it into several smaller articles?Barbara Shack 15:11, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One reason why it's growing is that there's a POV war going on (see Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Licorne) - the usual response to a POV claim is to change the article towards being more precise about facts, but that makes it grow, since facts are messy. A lot of info is duplicated between articles; some "see also" tags would probably be a good feature. --Alvestrand 15:53, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: How about putting the scientific work into a separate article?

message: I am new to this site as a contributor, but have utilized it extensively.  I seek to maintain the integrity of the site but feel that the Einstein page should include, at least in the body of the site, mention of two of his most famous, and needless to say inspirational, quotes.  Strike me down if I am wrong, but I posted them here before inserting them to the page:  1."Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds..." 2."God does not roll the dice...".  I do not have the citations for the original documentation of these statements, but feel that they are significant to the history, lore, and objective view of the man that has become a face of the modern scientific world.Sven1olaf 03:59, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You'll find the "dice" remark under the "Copenhagen interpretation" section, including citation and context... once you have the context of the first remark, I'm sure it fits somewhere. Welcome to Einstein! --Alvestrand 06:36, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The dice  quote shows Einstein was all wrong about Quantum Mechanics too. If he weren't plagiarizing someone, he was always wrong. Licorne 12:49, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Addition 

message: Harald said above the Intro must be rewritten, so keep the red tag until he does it, thank you. Licorne 01:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Waiting for Harald

message: Fast fission you took the qualifying comments off of the paragraph on E=mc2 ? ? ?  -- It is now very misleading !  --  Sir Edmund Whittaker credited Poincare with E=mc2 in 1900. --You make it sound like Einstein was first, but he was not. --  -- Also, Einstein's derivation was False as published by Max Planck and H.E. Ives.  -- Revert it back please, to be correct and not misleading. --EXPLAIN YOURSELF.--Licorne 01:35, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Macrossan  accurately wrote  it  up  on  Poincare's page, with sources, regarding E=mc2,  so  I  will  transcibe  it  to  Einstein's page, then you can bitch at Macrossan for it. -- I just now went to put Macrossan's words onto the Einstein page regarding E=mc2, but it is I believe frozen ? --Licorne 03:51, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no false statement in the paragraph about e=mc^2 on the Einstein page, as reverted by FastFission. Planck did not say Einstein was wrong - he said Einstein's derivation was approximate as did Einstein ("ignoring terms of ...") and Planck produced what he thought was a better proof of Einstein's result (not Poincare's different result). The whole issue has been discussed ad nauseaum, so I can write Licorne's response for him: "Whittaker called it Poincare's E = mc^2". Thanks, but we know that. Whittaker is adequately discussed above under "Whittaker's credibility".  E4mmacro 04:42, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello Macrossan, I like the way you wrote it up on Poincare's page, I'll transcribe it to Einstein's page. -- Note Planck questioned the reasoning in Einstein's paper, and Ives showed it a tautology, just as you wrote it yourself I will transcribe it for you.Licorne 04:48, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please don't do that. On the Poincare page (which was the result of a tug-of-war between you and me) the emphasis is on Poincare's DIFFERENT result and why it is NOT the same as Einstein's result. You made the last edit (a deletion of Einstein's name) so that the final (frozen) text seems to imply that Poincare obtained Einstein's result. The Einstein page (as left by fastfission) accurately states Einstein's result that the energy of a body at rest is mc^2. This result was NOT derived by Poincare. If you want to denigrate Einstein with a footnote about Ives, I suppose you can, and I will add to the footnote Reisman and Young contradicting Ives on this point, but there is no point lengthening the article in this way. E4mmacro 05:01, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Give yourself more credit Macro, you wrote it up great, we'll use it. Licorne 05:33, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: Again, Licorne, if Macrossan wants to change it, he's more than welcome to -- he's someone I trust to do things the right way. You, on the other hand, seem to make a consistent habit of misrepresenting sources as well as other editors. And it should be noted, as illustrated by Macrossan's link, is remove the statements about what other people thought about Einstein's work. I'm not convinced that those are representative of the larger scientific reaction to it, and as such I'm not convinced they should be in Einstein's biography (as opposed to, say,  the article on E=mc2, where details about individual assessments, whether representative or not, could be relevant). --Fastfission 05:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Fastfission, I think Macrossan did a fine job writing it up about E=mc2, we can use Macrossan's own exact wording, on Einstein's page, because Macrossan is someone we  trust to do the right way, as you just said. Licorne 05:21, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: A fourth paper, "Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?", ("Ist die Trägheit eines Körpers von seinem Energieinhalt abhängig?") published late in 1905, showed one further deduction from relativity's axioms, the famous equation that the energy of a body at rest (E) equals its mass (m) times the speed of light (c) squared: E = mc².
I do not want to change it. E4mmacro 06:18, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You made yourself perfectly clear, as did I, but Licorne seems to fancy purposefully misinterpretting editors, as he does his historical sources. I suspect he is just trying to get a rise out of people, so I've taken to just ignoring him on such things, since he obviously cannot be reasoned with. Fortunately his arbitration case has been launched so his time around here is very limited. --Fastfission 14:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: It is misleading and must be changed. Too simplistic, very misleading. -- You were very precise on Poincare's page, we'll use it again here.Licorne 06:20, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You can change whatever you want, but you will simply be reverted. Nobody is fooled by your nonsense. --Fastfission 14:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

text: If Harald has problems with the Intro, he can voice them himself. He doesn't need you to be his watchdog, nor has he -- or anyone else -- ever asked you to be. Harald's authority, nor any other editor's, cannot be invoked for your pet projects, and should and will be ignored. --Fastfission 14:08, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: E=mc2 is Wrong, Fast fission ! 

message: An anonymous IP has edited the intro changing "widely regarded as the greatest" to "widely regarded as one of the greatest", citing Encarta, which he claims ranks Newton above Einstein.
I don't have a strong POV, but I'd like to see if there are enough authoritative sources for "the greatest" that we should put it back - if not, "one of" is fine with me. --Alvestrand 06:52, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think English-speakers such as myself have always been told or thought Newton was "the greatest", which is understandable. But here are some quotes from Einstein (as quoted by by James Gleick in a book "Isaac Newton" 1988) which suggest to me that leaving Einstein as "one of the greatest of all time" (rather than the greatest) is OK by Einstein. "Let no one sippose that the mighty work of Newton can really be superseded by this or any other theory. His great and lucid ideas will retain their unique significance for all time as the foundations\ of our whole modern conceptual structure in the sphere of natural philosophy" (What is the theory of Relativity? Times of London, 28 Nov 1919, reprinted in "Out of My Later Years"). "We have to realize that before Newton there existed no self-contained system of physical causality which was somehow capable of representing any of the deeper features of the empirical world" (Ideas and Opinions). E4mmacro 20:40, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Dream on, Macro. -- Licorne 22:53, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Does this mean you think Einstein is the greatest, not Newton? Do you think Poincare was the greatest scientist ever? We value your input, pelase let us know. E4mmacro 02:59, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The greatest" or "one of the greatest"? 

message: From the article:
: ...at the insistence of his mother, was given violin lessons at the musical arts academy, Die Robetking Schule (english translation "The Kingdome of Robet academy").
As English, the "e" at the end of the "Kingdome" looks offensive to me. But the whole translation looks dubious - and a Google search for "Robetking" turns up only one occurence apart from the Wikipedia article. Could someone check with a reliable source whether the name is spelled correctly, and whether an "official English translation" exists?
A true nit, but nits are important... --Alvestrand 08:29, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Robetking academy"? 

message: The main image is clearly inverted, as it was modified with Photoshop. Look at his hair. Can someone please find a better image with copyright information? --24.253.120.206 13:18, 25 February 2006
Put the clown picture with his tongue sticking out. -- Licorne 22:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The photograph is fine. It would of course be inverted as it would have been taken with a negative-film camera, which creates a 'negative' of the image. This is then inverted in order to create the 'positive'. The image looks perfectly usable. The one which you are trying to replace it with is not a good image as it has an incorrect copyright tag (it is not a screenshot and therefore cannot be used under fair use), it is bad quality - low scan quality and this one is a 'free' image so it should be chosen above fair use images anyway (as per the guidelines). -Localzuk (talk) 21:37, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

text: If the image should be flipped, we can do that without too much difficulty. I think the current version is inferior in quality but I'm not going to bother trying to fix it until you've finished all of your editing. --Fastfission 04:35, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Albert Einstein Image 

message: "Born in Germany to Jewish parents, he temporarily renounced his German citizenship and took Swiss citizenship in 1901. He remained a Swiss citizen for the rest of his life, but regained German citizenship from 1914-1933 and in 1940 added American citizenship."
I find the information on his nationality distracting for the introduction. The information on his Jewish heritage and Swiss citizenship in addition to his American and German ties are already mentioned in a section entitled Nationality: German, Swiss or American? 
--24.253.120.206 20:33 25, February 2006
:The problem is that summing up Einstein's nationality/ethnicity takes a lot more than doing it in one or two adjectives. By putting that small explanation down a little lower, it keeps people from endlessly changing it, which is a constant nuisance otherwise. --Fastfission 04:36, 26 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not a trivial matter to many people, some of whom don't like that he is identified as German when he clearly didn't want to be German, and things of that nature. Einstein himself seemed to find the whole nationality question irrelevant: "If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will say I am a man of the world. If it's proven wrong, France will say I am a German and Germany will say I am a Jew." But anyway, since there is no way to create a brief, one-or-two adjective version of this, I don't think it is too incorrect to have two short sentences about it early on. I don't think it harms the quality that much. --Fastfission 14:13, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nationality

message: Harald said the Intro must be rewritten, in light of the Blatant Contradictions section above.  -- Where is Harald ? ? Licorne 00:48, 27 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Where is Harald, to Rewrite the Intro

message: There is a copy of Ives's paper in a Book called "The Einstein Myth and the Ives papers" (a complete collection of Ives relativity papers. Licorne said somewhere this book is in every University Library, if that is any help. There is something odd about Ives's criticism. Ives claims that Eisntein assumption that the energy = rest energy + kinetic energy (the assumption Planck questioend and de Kludde discusses above) "builds in the relation E = mc^2". If this were so one would think that Einstein would then derive E = mc^2 exactly. However Einstein does not derive it exactly, he has to approximate the term \left(1 - v^2/c^2\right)^{-1/2} -1 as \approx \frac{1}{2}v^2/c^2, so I am not entirely satisfied with Ives's criticism (why doesn't the results "fall out" exactly if it were "built in". On anotehr point, I don't think anyone has claimed that Planck's rederivation was not correct and in fact better than Eisntein's. But Planck never claimed to have priority in suggesting the mass-energy equivalence. E4mmacro 07:59, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Ives's paper

message: This is an encyclopedia article, not a wikibook.  I am concerned that it is
#getting too long
#being hijacked by highly POV dispute regarding alleged "controversy" about who introduced relativity (which is regarded by mainstream as having long since settled with the various significant contributions sorted out).
As a tiny first step toward restoring the once glorious state of this article (a former featured article), I have removed the Whittaker reference as being irrelevant to a biography of Einstein.  The user who added that reference might want to consider moving it to Priority disputes about Einstein and the relativity theories, where it is relevant as an example of a well-known contemporary attack of relativity theory (and arguably of Einstein himself). ---CH 02:12, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: References