Are Poincare and Lorentz the originators of relativity...

[dr.syntax]

therory. And did some guy named Maxwell and his equations have something to do with it. There are many websites such as: http://farshores.org/rm04ein.htm and many others that seem convinced this is true. Are they lying or not ? ...ds

[Mr Skeptic]

Oh it's fairly complicated. Maxwell and Lorentz were working on stuff very related to relativity -- in fact, the equations for the distortion of stuff are named after Lorentz. Maxwell's equations gave a new thing: light had to travel at c by the laws of physics. This, combined with the principle of relativity (that if you're in a box you can't tell how fast you're moving) meant that things had to get distorted. I don't remember what Poincare did.

[D H]

therory. And did some guy named Maxwell and his equations have something to do with it. There are many websites such as: http://farshores.org/rm04ein.htm and many others that seem convinced this is true. Are they lying or not ? ...ds

 

What a crock of ... something.

 

You are good at finding the nutjob sites. Why don't you try something else. For example, read Einstein's 1905 papers themselves. Since you are good at finding the nutjob sites, I assume you can find easily his papers.

 

In his 1905 paper "The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", Einstein talks about Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz transformations. He did not claim credit for them, or steal them. He most certainly did not plagiarize them in Maxwell or Lorentz sense of the word.

 

Maxwell's equations, published in 1865, go by a different set of names: Gauss's law, Gauss's law for magnetism, Faraday's law of induction, and Ampère's law. So why are they called Maxwell's equations? Simple: Maxwell showed how they worked together as a whole. They were not just four distinct laws of physics. One thing that they show as a whole: All electromagnetic radiation travels at one speed, c. The velocity of the transmitter and velocity of the receiver are irrelevant.

 

You probably have heard of the Michelson-Morley experiment. The purpose of the experiment was simple: To prove Maxwell was wrong. That experiment didn't work as planned. It ranks very, very high on the list of failed experiments. For the last 30 years of the 19th century, electromagnetism and classical physics conflicted with one another.

 

The best physicists of the time worked to redress this conflict. Among those who worked on it: Fitzgerald, Larmor, Lorentz, Minkowski, Poincare, Planck, and of course Einstein. Note the names Einstein used in his paper: The Maxwell-Hertz equations, the Lorentz transformations, Lorentz' theory of electromagnetism. If he did plagiarize their work, why did he name those people in his paper?

 

Lorentz believed in the existence of absolute reference frame. The philosophical difference Lorentz' formulation and Einstein's was immense. Lorentz postulated the Lorentz transformations. It was an ad-hoc theory. Einstein postulated some seemingly simple statements and derived the Lorentz transformations. Poincare was the closest to developing a theory of relativity, but even he still clung to some absolute reference frame. Einstein's contribution to relativity theory was relativity and simplicity.

 

This kind of thing happens a lot in mathematics and science. People develop an ad-hoc explanations of some phenomena, someone comes along later and puts it all together in an encompassing, simplifying theory. In this case, the Lorentz transformations are still called the Lorentz transformations, Maxwell's equations are still called Maxwell's equations, but the theory that puts it all together in a beautifully simple form is Einstein's.

[dr.syntax]

people who originated the famous equation prior to Einstein. S.T.Oliver proposed in 1875 that vast amounts of energy can be prduced from matter. He determinned that 1 grain could lift a 100,000 ton object up to a height of 1.9 miles. This deduction yields the essence of E=mc2. His book is titled:Physics of the Ether. Also a man named Olinto DePretto published the equation E=mc2 in 1903 and again in 1904, at least a year and a half prior to Einstien and discussed how very important his discoveries were. This topic is being discussed at Physics Forum http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=28362 Many believe one of his wives did most of the work and on and on. Is Einstein some sort of God like figure no one should dare to speak critically of lest he offend one of his believers ? ...Dr.Syntax P.S. A.EINSTEIN did reference: Maxwell-Hertz equations. I read his paper online and those were the only references I saw

Edited September 6, 2009 by dr.syntax
to correct web address Maxwell-Hertz referenced by A.E.

[D H]

people who originated the famous equation prior to Einstein. S.T.Oliver proposed in 1875 that vast amounts of energy can be prduced from matter. ... His book is titled:Physics of the Ether.

That was Samuel Tolver Preston. He arrived at his results by some rather convoluted and very ad hoc reasoning. Moreover, he predicated his reasoning on the existence of an ether. The Michelson-Morley experiment of course showed that there was no such thing as the luminiferous ether.

 

Also a man named Olinto DePretto published the equation E=mc2 in 1903 and again in 1904, at least a year and a half prior to Einstien and discussed how very important his discoveries were.

Riiight. DePretto, like Preston, started with an assumption of a luminiferous ether. He compounded this error with a zinger: he forgot the factor of 1/2 for kinetic energy (T=1/2 mv²).

 

 

This topic is being discussed at Physics Forum http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=28362

No, it isn't being discussed. It was discussed. The thread is locked. Let me zoom to the last post in that thread:

This thread doesn't deserve to be revived' date=' even to point out the glaring psuedoscience. (Under our current policy, the initial post would have been tagged and bagged immediately.)[/quote']

 

Tagged and bagged. This is what should be done with this thread, and with you.

 

Dig just a bit under the skin of those desperately trying to prove that Einstein was a plagiarist and you find a lot of racism. The thinking is along the lines of "Einstein was a Jew. Jews might be conniving thieves, but they aren't smart. Einstein couldn't possibly have come up with relativity." This line of reasoning is reprehensible.

 

Einstein did not come up with Maxwell's equations or the Lorentz transformations. That is why he called them Maxwell's equations and the the Lorentz transformations in his 1905 paper. What he did come up with was a radically new way and amazingly simple (in hind sight) way of looking at the universe.

[dr.syntax]

of Albert Einstein had this to say on Einstein`s original paper : " Another curious feature of the now famous paper,Einstein 1905, is the absense of any reference to Poincare or anyone else ". Then, in his book:" Physics in my generation " Pergamon Press,1956 London, page 193 Born states : " It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is,of course, as I have tried to explain,not true". Keep in mind , Max Born was a longtimme good friend of Einstein`s. Many other noted scientists have been less timid in thier feelings about all this. At later points in time Einstein did give some meager credit to a very few others. ...DS

[D H]

I am not claiming you are a racist. I am claiming that you are a racist, a crackpot -- or someone who has fallen prey to their arguments. Anti-Einstein sentiment falls into one of those camps.

 

If you do a bit of internet sleuthing you will find answers to your questions. For example, http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2576/was-einstein-a-plagiarist

Was Einstein a plagiarist? Several articles have been written saying he was. What do you think?

 

— mcsage1, via e-mail

 

This letter will raise two questions in the mind of the average reader:

 

1. You mean to tell me that in 1905, when Albert Einstein published his groundbreaking paper, there were, assuming that every cribber requires a cribbee, two people on the planet who understood the theory of special relativity?

 

Lorentz certainly didn't, nor did Poincare. The reason they didn't is that they clung to the idea of absolute space and time. Had they given up this idea they might have beaten Einstein to the theory of special relativity. But they didn't. Poincare's 1905 paper, published a month before Einstein's, still had the Lorentz transformations as ad hoc postulates. Einstein's paper derived the Lorentz transformations from two simple postulates.

 

Does Einstein deserve all of the credit for relativity? Of course not. The idea goes back to Galileo. Does he deserve credit for putting some seemingly simple hypotheses together and seeing where that goes? Yes. None of his contemporaries made that seemingly simple leap. It only seems simple in hindsight.

Edited September 6, 2009 by D H
I wasn't very nice.

[insane_alien]

so to sum up...

 

einstein, like EVERY other scientist was building upon the work of others before him. the only reason he is famous is that he had the precursors available to make a relatively(no pun intended) large change to the physics landscape with a relatively simple jump in understanding. much the same thing as gallileo realising all objects fall at the same speed regardless of mass.

[D H]

Bingo!

 

EVERY scientist builds on top of what others have already put forth. Nothing special there. Where Einstein was special was in making leaps of creativity and connecting the dots. Who woulda thunk that time and space being more pliable than silly putty would result from the speed of light and the laws of physics being the same in all inertial frames?

 

That the speed of light was constant was a well-known fact at the onset of the 20th century. That the laws of physics were immutable was something every physicist believed. Yet none of Einstein's contemporaries put these two ideas together. Without anyone else to do the thinking for him, how could he have plagiarized using those simple ideas as the basis for relativity theory?

[dr.syntax]

the theories of relativity. Poincare and Lorentz were thought by many to be the true originators. Einstein argued against quantum mechanics with Bohr and others and opposed quantum mechanics until he died 30 years later. I fail to see how this man gets so much credit for modern physics. ...ds

Edited September 6, 2009 by dr.syntax
addition

[insane_alien]

he gets credit because neither poincare or lorentz discovered special and general relativity. the discovered the precursors that allowed einstein to formulate relativity.

 

just because the person who invented the brick made the precursor to all brick buildings does not mean he built all brick buildings. it just means he invented the brick. the people who actually built the buildings built the buildings.

[swansont]

Einstein gets credit because he made important contributions. However, he is built up to deity status by the popular media, not by the physics community. If you are a physicist, you quickly realize that there are many incredibly smart people in the field, and that there are a lot of them occupying the highest levels. There are a number of them that are smart enough to win a Nobel, but are/were not fortunate enough to be in the right position at the right time to make the breakthrough discovery.

 

The difference between Einstein and the average person who has just a bare intuitive grasp of Galilean-transform classical physics is large. The difference between Einstein and his contemporaries was much smaller, and possibly nonexistent. The same holds true today.

[ydoaPs]

the theories of relativity. Poincare and Lorentz were thought by many to be the true originators. Einstein argued against quantum mechanics with Bohr and others and opposed quantum mechanics until he died 30 years later. I fail to see how this man gets so much credit for modern physics. ...ds

It is beyond me how people who argue for an ABSOLUTE REFERENCE FRAME can be thought the true originators of RELATIVITY.

[swansont]

therory. And did some guy named Maxwell and his equations have something to do with it. There are many websites such as: http://farshores.org/rm04ein.htm and many others that seem convinced this is true. Are they lying or not ? ...ds

 

D H has covered this extensively already, but incase it was missed:

 

Yes, they are lying.

[ajb]

I think it is true that Poincare, Lorentz, FitzGerald, Cartan etc. have not been recognised in wider society for their contributions to relativity, but they are recognised in the physics/mathematics community.

[D H]

Moving the goalposts, huh?

 

The committee could have jointly recognized Lorentz and Einstein. (They were jointly nominated for the 1912 prize, for example.) They didn't, in part because the committee had a distinct bias against theoretical physicists for the first 40 years of its existence. The committee recognized 40 physicists between 1901 to 1940: 29 experimentalists and 11 theoreticians.

 

Einstein did win the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921. A vanishingly tiny number of physicists think this award was a travesty because Einstein did not deserve to receive it at all. Many, many more physicists think this award was a travesty because Einstein deserved four Nobel prizes, not one, and because the committee took way too long to recognize him for any of his numerous contributions.

 

So what were his contributions to science? His 1905 papers:

 

"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light" introduced the idea of the photoelectric effect. This paper was one of the seminal papers in quantum mechanics. It has important applications to this day. Do you want our society to go green? Solar power panels rely directly on the photoelectric effect.

 

"On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat" explained the concept of Brownian motion. This was another key paper in the development of quantum mechanics -- and was the first paper in the field of statistical physics.

 

"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" -- we've discussed this already.

 

"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" derived the mass-energy equivalence equation, [math]E=mc^2[/math].

 

 

That was in one year. He made numerous contributions to physics after that. Bose-Einstein statistics and general relativity, for example.

[dr.syntax]

credit him with originating E=mc2 . Those others I would have to check into further. ds

[D H]

One problem with that line of reasoning: You, and others like you, are not physicists. You have the credibility of any other crackpot: Zip.

 

Preston (not Oliver, get your facts straight) came to [math]E=mc^2[/math] via some ad hoc reasoning that is demonstrably false. He based his argument on a luminiferous aether that takes the form of ether particles. There is no luminiferous aether, and there certainly are no ether particles. At least Preston had an excuse for assuming the existence of an ether: In 1875, every physicist assumed such. The ether particle bit is, well, a bit cranky.

 

DePretto based his derivation on the incorrect formula for kinetic energy and he assumed a luminiferous aether. DePretto had no such excuse as the Michelson-Morley experiment predated him by a couple decades, and he most certainly had no excuse for using [math]KE=mv^2[/math]. DePretto was'nt just cranky. In the words of http://www.crank.net, he was crankiest.

 

No credible physicist came up with [math]E=mc^2[/math] before Einstein. That is his, and his alone.

 

 

With this last post you have shown your true spots. You did not make the original post as an innocent query. Rather, you made it appear innocent in an attempt to hide your spots.

[dr.syntax]

who have influenced ,helped with, previously stated principles and such you present before the scientific community for consideration. In his 1907 paper, Einstein spelled out his views on plagarism : " It appears to me that it is the nature of the business that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. Despite that fact, since the issues of concern are here addressed from a new point of view, I am entitled to leave out a thoroughly pendantic survey of the literature. " Imagine how you might feel if work you had published a few years back was completely ignored and credit for years of hard work on your part was somehow attribitted to some upstart who decided it was unnecessary and pedantic for him to credit predecessors in current and cutting edge scientific thought and discovery. People such as Henri Poincare who is now the acknowledged originator of: the Theory of Special Relativity by me and and many others. How would would you feel if someone managed to steal credit for some great idea you worked out and had published and such ? Also, you discredit S.Tolver Preston and others for something about the ether. Why are you so willing to overlook Einstein`s 30 years of stubborn resistance to quantum mechanics ? All the physics greats of that era were working out the different aspects of quantum mechanics and THE GREAT ONE stubborningly resisted for over 30 years of amazing advances in that important field of physics. Answer that one . ... Dr.Syntax

Edited September 7, 2009 by dr.syntax
clarification

[ydoaPs]

who have influenced ,helped with, previously stated principles and such you present before the scientific community for consideration. In his 1907 paper, Einstein spelled out his views on plagarism : " It appears to me that it is the nature of the business that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. Despite that fact, since the issues of concern are here addressed from a new point of view, I am entitled to leave out a thoroughly pendantic survey of the literature. " Imagine how you might feel if work you had published a few years back was completely ignored and credit for years of hard work on your part was somehow attribitted to some upstart who decided it was unnecessary and pedantic for him to credit predecessors in current and cutting edge scientific thought and discovery. People such as Henri Poincare who is now the acknowledged originator of: the Theory of Special Relativity. How would would you feel if someone managed to steal credit for some great idea you worked out and had published and such ? Also, you discredit Tolver Preston and others for something about ether. Why are you so willing to overlook Einstein`s 30 years of stubborn resistance to quantum mechanics ? All the physics greats of that era were working out the different aspects of quantum mechanics and THE GREAT ONE stubborningly resisted for over 30 years of amazing advances in that important field of physics. Answer that one . ... Dr.Syntax

 

FFS, he DID attribute them. That's why HE USED THEIR NAMES IN THE PAPER as you've been told several times.

 

RTFP

Edited September 6, 2009 by ydoaPs
Consecutive posts merged.

[dr.syntax]

He mentions Maxwell-Hertz and Lorentz. There is no mention of Poincare. None. There are a few others who deserved to be referenced. I do not know thier names off the top of my head. Maybe some of you who do can help me out here. Anyway, the omission of Poincare is inexcusable. ...ds PS Two others are S.Tolver Preston and Olinto DePresto both of who deduced E=mc2 prior to Einstein. Tolver did so using English units that were the equivilant before Einstein was ever born and DePresto 2 years prior using E=mc2. There are others who warranted creditation.

Edited September 7, 2009 by dr.syntax
additons

[D H]

Anyway, the omission of Poincare is inexcusable.

Why? How did Poincare's work help Einstein at all? Was Einstein aware of it? Do you even read the papers, or do you just read hate sites?

[dr.syntax]

S.T.Preston and Olinto DePresto, both of whom had derived E=mc2 and had published works stating such prior to Einstein. Tolver did so using English units of measure which worked out as E=mc2 before Einstein was even born. DePresto used E=mc2 exactly and about 2 years prior to Einstein. He actually published his work a second time about 1 year prior to Einstein. How hard does a guy have to try to get some deserved respect. There are quite a few other notable contrbuters from that era.

[D H]

We've been over Preston and DePretto. DePretto deserves no claim. He made several errors that just happened to cancel. He got the right answer by pure dumb luck. When students make mistakes that luckily happen to cancel they might get partial credit. When scientists make mistakes that luckily happen to cancel, the only credit is negative. They certainly are not credited with the discovery.

 

Preston did not use relativistic arguments. He instead based his argument on a rather dubious interpretation of a model that, by Einstein's time, was utterly falsified. Pure luck once again (just not dumb luck this time), and once again, no credit.

[dr.syntax]

Here is a link that discusses the importance of Poincare. [ http://einstein52.tripod.com/alberteinsteinprophetorplagiarist/id6.html ]. This link is a short to the point read on the importance of Poincare and Lorentz as to relativity theories with references. D.S.

Edited September 7, 2009 by dr.syntax
I thought previous posts deleted,not so,needs changes,needs more changes