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There's a slight mistake imho. Einsteins theory of relativity is categorised as a "now we're ready" idea meaning that if he hadn't thought of it somebody else w
by mixmax 19y ago
There's a slight mistake imho. Einsteins theory of relativity is categorised as a "now we're ready" idea meaning that if he hadn't thought of it somebody else would have. While this is true for the special theory of relativity published in 1905 it is not true for the general theory of relativity which also includes gravity published ten years later.
Many scientists believe that if Einstein hadn't incorporated gravity into the theory there's a good chance that it would still be undiscovered today.
But aside from that a really worthwhile article.
- deleted 19y ago[deleted]
- foonamefoo 19y agoEver hear of Hilbert?
- mixmax 19y agoYes - and Hilberts contribution to general relativity theory primarily sprung from a seminar held in 1915 where Einstein and Hilbert elaborated on the theory, leading among other things to the Einstein field equations and Einstein-Hilbert action. What this means is that Hilbert helped elaborate on the theory, and worked out some of the kinks. Not to dismiss Hilbert, but the idea was Einsteins' and his alone.
- gregwebs 19y agoHe classified it as the "obvious next" and qualified it as possibly a "luminary"
- mixmax 19y agoehm, no. He says that he can't think of any luminary ideas and goes on to say this: "If we can theorize that if Einstein had never existed it would have been 50 years (or 100 years or whatever you like) before someone else thought it up - we can probably classify it as luminary." He doesn't say that the idea is luminary, he is simply lacking an example and theorises on the Einstein idea.
- Herring 19y ago"Many scientists believe that if Einstein hadn't incorporated gravity into the theory there's a good chance that it would still be undiscovered today." Actually, no. If you start out with flat spacetime & try to describe massless spin-2 particles, you'll find gravity falls right out of the equations. It's quite elegant, really.
- mixmax 19y agoWasn't this only discovered in the 70's or even later?