Einstein a cheat or the real deal?

disscus?

Hi Drude,

Are you honestly saying that people would use a Patent Office to lodge a Theory of Special and General Relativity? Then not complain if Einstein "stole" them.

The Theory of Special Relativity is not particularly difficult mathematically in it's first format. It is true that it contains the Lorentz Contraction Factor but that was well known by all Physicists at the time (probably all 20 of them eh!) but it was Einstein who "put it together" and the idea of using dimensions is his as well (at least Spacetime anyway). The Theory of the Quantum he developed from the known understanding of the phenomena as well (Photoelectric Effect). He did very little in Experimental Physics but he always said that his Laboratory was his pencil. Well... he did lodge a Patent for a new type of refrigerator with mate Leo Slizard. I guess he knew how to do that. They were the ones who warned the President about the possibility of a German Atomic Bomb. The surprise was the Germans were working on the Bomb too!!! I only found that out in the last 10 or so years. It is a good thing the War ended early. Without the assistance of the Americans... it may have been worse for both sides. The Germans had already developed a two stage sub-orbital launch vehicle that would have been used to bombard the US and Britain. Prototypes were made. Just imagine both sides with the Bomb... (or perhaps only one side with the Bomb)

Thank you Einstein!

It just shows just what you can do if you put your mind to it. After all it is really not Einsteins Theories they are the Theories of the Universe and all anyone had to do was "listen".

You are wrong when you say...

"German Jews" were not the flavor of the month in 1905 and the Unified Field Theory is the Theory of Strings - go look it up - everything old is new again (but more complicated). Easy on the anti-german and anti-semite stuff please...

Cheers

Hey, Drude -

The new string theory (a bit oxymoronic, if you ask me - "new" string theory?), is a microscopic extension of Einstein's GR where, as a fair amt of physicists agree, is merely an assessment of a spatially dependent average - a macroscopic view w/ absolutely NO commentary on the microscopic. SUSY and LQG are attempts at the quantization of spacetime, which is completely ignored in GR. You should know this, since GR until only recently w/ Hawking radiation, had nothing to do w/ QM.

Further, if you actually read his notes auf Deutsch (rather than trust a grossly biased and scary antisemitic website), he made lots of mistakes - he also publicly admitted them. He thoroughly collaborated w/ Kurt Gödel to get things where he wanted them mathematically.

Your comment is pretty gross and dangerously antisemitic, given your apparent ignorance of the topic.

Einstein could see the things he wanted to describe, and learned the math it took to describe them.
Right or wrong.

His math professor called him a 'lazy dog' but later collaborated in parts of the theory, actually I think I would have dropped the math professor's aquaintence.

He was smart, much smarter than the rest of us; let us never forget that we build on ideas developed (yes developed) by Einstein.

Pretty easy to say that all of those ideas were out there at the time; combine optics, and measurements of the speed of light, and get those theories.

You do it.

Mm hm. German schools at the time (dunno how they are now) were into rote memorization for the method of teaching. Einstein wasn't good at that, and reportedly his parents were told when he was young that he "wasn't gonna amount to anything."

Of course, being the unconventional mind that Einstein's mind was, and that he was highly visual and thought up SR and GR conceptually before working out (and eventually, with the help of other physicists, inventing some of) the math, it's no wonder that rote memorization wasn't his thing. If I were placed in such a school, I'd do horribly too, but that doesn't mean I don't have an awesome GPA at MSU.

Just because someone sucks at math, that doesn't mean they don't understand what's going on behind the math. I personally was the absolute worst math student in the history of the human race (and MODEST to boot!) However, I understand GR, SR (to the point where I can at least explain the concept.) Had I bothered to (read: if I gleened any joy from) learning the math, I'm fairly certain I could do wunnerful stuff with it.

What Einstein did, was take what was understood about the world we live in, and theorize about how it all works. Then he set about doing the math to refine his theory. Yes he made mistakes along the way, but sloppyness and genious usually go hand in hand. I'll cite my bedroom as an example. :-)

(Disclaimer in case I get flamed: No I'm not as smart as Einstein, wouldn't even attempt to argue the fact that I'm not)

Oh, I absolutly agree with the points made here. I dont frankly believe in these sources but I also dont believe in theory of relativity because for me quantum world makes more sense. However, it is true that this site has an anti sematic voice to it. But as I mentioned I merely picked on the points which sounded interesting. This is most definitely not something I wish to approve. However, I wanted to know your idea.

And as for string theory, I do realize that it attempts to give a unified image of quantum mechanics and relativity but to this date, thou the workframe and theoretical component of it have been laid, the actuall feasible experimentation has not been carried out. So to my view, unless there is ample testable, proof this is but an overgeneralization of the forumals in the two disciplines to make sense of them. I mean only becaues a set of equations make sense with our observations does not make them factual. They have to be tested.

Once again, this is not in any way my belief about Einstein, but I more to the point, wanted people to give me proof to think and realize that it is not true. So please do not assume that I accept them. If I did , I wouldnt have posted it here.

I'm guessing you learned physics from pop science books. Not to flame you, but as a physics student, I can honestly say modern physics IS math (albeit with constraints). So when people claim they "understand" modern theories without a good mathematical foundation, they are only conceptualizing the surface of the mathematical relationships.

As to Einstein, I have read rumors here and there (don't know how reliable the sources are) that he indeed visualized that GR can only be solved through Riemann topology, but it was Hilbert who actually crunched the math. So the credit could be split between the two. I think some other guy might be involved too, although I don't remember how. SR is most certainly Einstein's own creation however.

Relativity is in my opinion the most elegant physical theory ever created. The derivation is perfectly logical. Going through the steps makes you wonder "how did I not think of this?" Quantum theory, on the other hand, would be an embarassment to physics had its predictive powers been less perfect. From a theory point of view, the whole beginning of QM (Bohr-Sommerfeld anyone?) is a mishmash of equations that was created only because they work.

Honestly, I think the original poster is an idiot.

You could say that Einstein's SR work already had the first floor of the house built, in sections. A kitchen was there, a bathroom, perhaps a living room with a black and white TV, but not that much. This is embodied in the whole business with the luminiferous ether, the Michelson-Morley experiment, Maxwell's equations, and the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction.

However, Einstein was the one who laid the foundation below it all. The Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, now known as SR's length contraction, was posited to "save the theory" of the luminiferous ether. The notion that space was being contracted was suggested through the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction, but not everyone took it seriously and it was a very ad hoc explanation. Einstein was the one who related this contraction to space, and then time, and really linked the constancy of the speed of light with the idea of inertial reference frames and everything else. In that way, he laid the foundation of conceptual understanding underneath the segments that were there before him.

Then, he built - he connected everything together and built up from the first floor to the second, the third, etc. He related all of this to time dilation, and relativistic mass, etc. etc. And then the conflict between SR and the Newtonian concept of instantaneous gravity made him build higher and higher, laying the foundations for GR and above.

Did he have help? Of course! Hell, Newton and Leibniz, although independently co-inventing calculus, worked with each other's developments (along with other mathematician/physicists). In the same way, Minkowski worked on Einstein's SR and developed Minkowski spaces, an alternate way of deriving the Lorentz transformations. Schwarzchild, on the Russian battle lines in WWI, worked on black holes after Einstein published GR and submitted his work to Einstein (you may have heard of the Schwarzchild Radius) right before he died of disease. Many people worked with Einstein on SR and GR, but Einstein was the reason everything made sense together.

And SR and GR have been proven to work - without counting for the effects of SR and GR, GPS satellites would be drastically off every day and particle physics experiments wouldn't make sense, since particles are accelerated to near the speed of light.

These posts mentioned Lorentz, but what of Planck, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger?
People are familiar with Einstein because of the popularity of the new ideas.
You may recall that some of the aforementioned physicists were invited to Princeton, but most declined.

Because they have nothing to do with Einstein and relativity?

True, they were a sum of equations, and they did work but they also were proved to an agreeable extend. So though the method of achieving them sounds chaotic, the result is satisfactory. Isnt science what we come up with and test and make testable in form of a theory? If yes, then it is hardcore science in my view.

Yes, I agree but it is not proven yet. What validity does it have except that it works mathematically?

Very good point. I personally prefer Plank, Heisernberg or Schrodinger over Einstein.

Well, if that was to me. That certainly wasnt nice

Have you ever had real training in QM? I have. Even though they work, the underlying ideas are confusing and often MAKES NO SENSE.

One thing I find really annoying (at the risk of sounding pompous) are non-physicists who reads a couple of Hawking books and think they know physics. Yes, QM can give certain weird mindbending results. Yes you can use the crap you read to impress your less knowledgeable friends. But the truth is, when you didn't understand the math, you didn't really understand anything. And as an actual physicist, I can say that the math is uncomfortable at best. So the thing about QM that's been ticking me off and many of my colleagues: yes the results are good, but our steps leading up to it might be misleading and missing chunks. Why's this important? Imagine some scientist trying to use one of these misleading parts to derive other theories. Then you have wrong theories built upon wrong premises.

I suppose that's why all these hyperdimensional theories are gaining ground (strings, branes, black hole holography), trying to fill in the missing chunks.

This is laughable. Your posts suggest you have no real background in modern theories.

Hi Drude and all,

You may need to refresh this information...
Good Elf's "first" post here
I thought that you may find this historical information interesting. I said before that I had heard that NAZI Germany had an Atom Bomb Project... well our newspapers had come up with a story today that Germany had a Fission Reactor and had developed an Atomic Tactical Device based on Plutonium and had tested it on Jewish POW's with devastating effect. This can be found at this site...
New light on Hitler's bomb
Here is a picture of early blueprints of the weapon declassified recently...

There are also pictures of the Allies dissembling the German Atomic Pile after WWII.

If Einstein had not urged the US to develop Atomic weapons and the war had dragged on a few more months the Germans had plans to drop two of these devices on UK and New York. That would have been a very interesting development and may have led to a totally different outcome to WWII. A thought that does not bear thinking about.

Consider also the fact that they had prototypes of a two stage sub-orbital intercontental missile (larger than a V2 ... A9) that could have been used to deploy the devices.


I think Americans owe Albert Einstein and Leo Slizard by potentially saving so many US lives because the US may not have entered the war as early as it did. It was all down to "chance".

Cheers

I see lol.