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Tons tons of people were working on special. Hilbert had sent a paper on nearly every part of it in n before Einstein, it got delayed at the publisher, Einstein

Tons tons of people were working on special. Hilbert had sent a paper on nearly every part of it in n before Einstein, it got delayed at the publisher, Einstein submitted his, then Hilbert sent in an updated manuscript with the same results before Einstein published. As a result of this there was a lifelong priority cold war between them. Hilbert derived general relativity 5 days before Einstein [1]. Einstein won the public relations difference because his previous work. It was that close. Recall Hilbert was vastly better at the math, and was catching up leaps and bounds on Einsteins intuition at the time. Dozens of others were also close. Minkowski, Cartan, Poincare, all were doing the same stuff, trying to unify the same items. So had Einstein done nothing, many others were immediately going to reach the same results. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_dispute https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_...

czzr 5y ago
Thanks for the link - reading it, though, it’s not clear that your summary is fair. Plenty of scope for Hilbert to have been building on things he learnt from Einstein.
- bigbillheck 5y ago
  Plenty of scope for Einstein to have been building on things he learnt from Hilbert.
  - ChrisLomont 5y ago
    Einsteins famous quote about his difficulties in mathematics stems from this period. Hilbert had mastered the be relevant mathematics, and was closing in on relativity much faster than Einstein. Hilbert was teaching Einstein the tools Einstein needed. Recall at this time Hilbert was a god in mathematics, and one of the best that ever lived. He did groundbreaking work in n many areas of math and physics. Of the two, each left alone, it's far more likely Hilbert would have arrived first. Working while corresponding likely made Einstein much faster and Hilbert slightly faster. Einstein took 8 years to work out general relativity. Hilbert started working on physics in 1912 and by 1915 had gotten to where he was deriving general relativity. The speed he worked in physics and the broad range of topics he influenced in physics far outshines Einstein. Hilbert famously said physicists don't know enough math to do physics. He was right at that time - his math mastery let him plow through physics much faster. To see the scope of things attributed to Hilbert versus attributed to Einsteins simply look over their Wikipedia pages.

czzr 5y ago

Thanks for the link - reading it, though, it’s not clear that your summary is fair. Plenty of scope for Hilbert to have been building on things he learnt from Einstein.

bigbillheck 5y ago
Plenty of scope for Einstein to have been building on things he learnt from Hilbert.
- ChrisLomont 5y ago
  Einsteins famous quote about his difficulties in mathematics stems from this period. Hilbert had mastered the be relevant mathematics, and was closing in on relativity much faster than Einstein. Hilbert was teaching Einstein the tools Einstein needed. Recall at this time Hilbert was a god in mathematics, and one of the best that ever lived. He did groundbreaking work in n many areas of math and physics. Of the two, each left alone, it's far more likely Hilbert would have arrived first. Working while corresponding likely made Einstein much faster and Hilbert slightly faster. Einstein took 8 years to work out general relativity. Hilbert started working on physics in 1912 and by 1915 had gotten to where he was deriving general relativity. The speed he worked in physics and the broad range of topics he influenced in physics far outshines Einstein. Hilbert famously said physicists don't know enough math to do physics. He was right at that time - his math mastery let him plow through physics much faster. To see the scope of things attributed to Hilbert versus attributed to Einsteins simply look over their Wikipedia pages.