Albert Einstein A Plagiarist?

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Albert Einstein A Plagiarist?
By Rory Carroll in Rome
The Guardian - UK
8-29-03

Einstein's E=MC2 'Was Italian's Idea'

The mathematical equation that ushered in the atomic age was discovered by an unknown Italian dilettante two years before Albert Einstein used it in developing the theory of relativity, it was claimed yesterday.

Olinto De Pretto, an industrialist from Vicenza, published the equation E=mc2 in a scientific magazine, Atte, in 1903, said Umberto Bartocci, a mathematical historian.

Einstein allegedly used De Pretto's insight in a major paper published in 1905, but De Pretto was never acclaimed, said Professor Bartocci of the University of Perugia.

De Pretto had stumbled on the equation, but not the theory of relativity, while speculating about ether in the life of the universe, said Prof Bartocci. It was republished in 1904 by Veneto's Royal Science Institute, but the equation's significance was not understood.

A Swiss Italian named Michele Besso alerted Einstein to the research and in 1905 Einstein published his own work, said Prof Bartocci. It took years for his breakthrough to be grasped. When the penny finally dropped, De Pretto's contribution was overlooked while Einstein went on to become the century's most famous scientist. De Pretto died in 1921.

"De Pretto did not discover relativity but there is no doubt that he was the first to use the equation. That is hugely significant. I also believe, though it's impossible to prove, that Einstein used De Pretto's research," said Prof Bartocci, who has written a book on the subject.

Einstein's theory held that time and motion are relative to the observer if the speed of light is constant and if all natural laws are the same. A footnote established the equivalence of mass and energy, according to which the energy (E) of a quantity of matter (m) is equal to the product of the mass and the square of the velocity of light (c). Now known as: E=mc2 .

The influence of work by other physicists on Einstein's theory is also controversial. A German, David Hilbert, is thought by some to have been decisive.

Edmund Robertson, professor of mathematics at St Andrew's University, said: "An awful lot of mathematics was done by people who have never been credited - Arabs in the middle ages, for example. Einstein may have got the idea from someone else, but ideas come from all sorts of places.

"De Pretto deserves credit if his contribution can be proven. Even so, it should not detract from Einstein."



Albert Einstein A Plagiarist

From Dick Eastman silver@nwinfo.net 8-29-3

Albert Einstein A Plagiarist - Christopher Bjerknes

(1) Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist, by Christopher Bjerknes

(2) E =mc 2 is Not Einstein 's Discovery, by Robert A. Herrmann

(3) (Defending Einstein) Einstein Ripped Off!

(4) (Defending Einstein) 8.8 Who Invented Relativity? __________


(1) Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist, by Christopher Bjerknes

<http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/CIPD.htm>http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/CIPD.htm

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data for Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist

Bjerknes, Christopher Jon, 1965-

Albert Einstein : the incorrigible plagiarist / by Christopher Jon Bjerknes.

ISBN 0-9719629-8-7 (alk. paper)

Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist

Anticipations of Einstein in the General Theory of Relativity

Table of Contents {chs 1 to 9: extracts from each}

The Priority Myth Excerpts from Chapter One

<http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/prioritymyth.htm>http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/prioritymyth.htm

It is easily proven that Albert Einstein did not originate the special theory of relativity in its entirety, or even in it smajority.1 The historic record is readily available. Ludwig Gustav Lange,2 Woldemar Voigt,3 George Francis FitzGerald,4 Joseph Larmor,5 Hendrik Antoon Lorentz,6 Jules Henri Poincar,7 Paul Drude,8 Paul Langevin,9 and many others, slowly developed the theory, step by step, and based it on thousands of years of recorded thought and research. Einstein may have made a few contributions to the theory, such as the relativistic equations for aberration and the Doppler-Fizeau Effect,10 though he may also have rendered an incorrect equation for the transverse mass of an electron, which, when corrected, becomes Lorentz' equation.11 Albert Einstein's first work on the theory of relativity did not appear until 1905. There is substantial evidence that Albert Einstein did not write this 1905 paper12on the "principle of relativity" alone. Hiswife, Mileva Einstein-Marity, may have been co-author, or the sole author, of the work.13 If Albert Einstein did not originate the major concepts of the special theory of relativity, how could such a historically significant fact have escaped the attention of the world for nearly a century? Th simple answer is that it did not. . . . . . . Lorentz, himself, attributed the principle of relativity to Poincare,

"For certain of the physical magnitudes which enter in the formulas I have not indicated the transformation which suits best. This has been done by Poincare, and later by Einstein and Minkowski." . . . in 1927, H. Thirring wrote,

"H. Poincare had already completely solved the problem of time several years before the appearance of Einstein's first work (1905). . . ." Sir Edmund Whittaker in his detailed survey, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity, Volume II,(1953), included a chapter entitled "The Relativity Theory of Poincare and Lorentz". Whittaker thoroughly documented the development of the theory, documenting the authentic history, and demonstrated through reference to primary sources that Einstein held no priority for the vast majority of the theory. Einstein offered no counter-argument to Whittaker's famous book. . . . . . Even among Einstein's admirers, voices are heard, which deny Einstein's priority. Max Born averred,

"I have now to say some words about the work of these predecessors of Einstein, mainly of Lorentz and Poincare. [***] Many of you have looked upon [Einstein's] paper 'Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Korper' in Annalen der Physic [***] and you will have noticed some pecularities. The striking point is that it contains not a single reference to previous literature. It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true."66 ==

Space-Time, or is it "Time-Space"? Excerpts from Chapter Two

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/spacetime.htm

Poincare provided the "four-dimensional analogue"124 to Lorentz' aether in 1905 and relativized the "Lorentzian ether" in 1895, long before Minkowski or Einstein manipulated credit for his work. The Einsteins' 1905 paper contains no four-dimensional analogue, and is, therefore, a theory of the "unrelativized Lorentzian aether", per se. . . .One must wonder how Minkowski "introduced", in 1908, that which was already extant in Poincare's work of 1905, and in Marcolongo's work of 1906. It was Poincare who first attacked Lorentz' and Larmor's distinction between local time and time, beginning in 1898, and eliminated said artificial distinction long before 1905 -- which distinction was not even present in Voigt's formulations of1887. . . .Neither Minkowski, nor the Einsteins,nor Poincare, hold priority on the conceptof four-dimensional space-time. H.G.Wells, in 1894, expressly stated it in a popular novel, The Time Machine,long before Minkowski claimed priority,

"'Can a cube that does not last for any time at all, have a real existence?' Filby became pensive. 'Clearly,' the Time Traveller proceeded, 'any real body must have extension in four directions: it must have Lenght, Breadth, Thickness, and -- Duration. But through a natural infirmity of the flesh, which I will explain to you in a moment, we incline to overlook this fact. There are really four dimensions, three which we call the three planes of Space, and a fourth, Time. There is, however, a tendency to draw an unreal distinction between the former three dimensions and the latter, because it happens that our consciousness moves intermittently in one direction along the latter from the beginning to the end of our lives.'" . . .An article by "S." had appeared in Nature, Volume 31, Number 804, (March26, 1885), p. 481, titled,"Four-Dimensional Space", which presented the concepts of "time-space","four-dimensional solid" ("sur-solid", afterDes Cartes), "time-area", and "time-line"; which later became "space-time" ("Zeit-Raum" is a confusing pun in German with the word "Zeitraum"),"absolute world", and "world-line". . . .In this same lecture, followed by adiscussion which is on record,131 Einstein shamelessly parroted Poincare's enquiries into the nature of simultaneity132 and his clocks ynchronization procedures, without citing Poincare; and Einstein failed to correct those who credited Einstein with the ideas he repeated, which were not his own. ==

"Theory of Relativity" or "Pseudorelativism"? Excerpts from Chapter Three

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/pseudorelat.htm

"Einstein's theory of relativity is a misnomer, it should be called atheory of absolutivity."--Wallace Kantor . . .Samuel Alexander held that,

"[I]t is clear that Space-Time takes for us the place of what is called the Absolute in idealistic systems. it is an experiential absolute."188 . . .Melchior Palagyi, from whom Minkowski took much, stated,

"The term introduced by Einstein: 'theory of relativity' is, of course, a most unfortunate choice; we retain it, however, like any arbitrary standard designation, which you can't get rid of, because people have grown accustomed to using it. . . ."194 . . .Einstein professed, after the general theory was established, that,

"There is no absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space, and no absolute relation in time between two events, but there is an absolute (independent of the space of reference) relation in space and time"195 and,

"The four-dimensional space of the special theory of relativity is just as rigid and absolute as Newton's space."196 and,

"The space-time phenomenon of the special theory of relativity was something absolute in itself, inasmuch as it was independent of the particular state of motions considered in that theory." . . . Robert Resnick conluded that,

"the theory of relativity could have been called the theory of absolutism with some justification. [***] there are absolute lengths and times in relativity. [***] Where relativity theory is clearly 'more absolute' than classical physics is in the relativity principle itself: the laws of physics are absolute."201 It is some strange "relativity theory", which is more absolutist than classical absolutism! . . . In one sense the pseudorelativists' caution with respect tothe aether is commendable. In another, it is unscientific to refuse to speculate based on the pseudorelativists' pretentious grounds that measurementand mathematical abstraction are the only tools of the scientist, and that their pseudorelativistic subjective comparisons and arguments by analogy are somehow"objective". . . .The list of true relativists is long. To name but a few: DesCartes, Huyghens,Locke, Leibnitz, Berkeley, Hume, Comte,Spencer, Stallo, Hamilton, Mach,Anderssohn, Avenarius, Petzoldt, etc.. A real relativist, like Stallo, would never have embraced the absolutist "special theory of relativity", with its codified absolute space and time, and absolutist "space-time" and the ontological "universal constant" speed of light and absolute laws of Nature. . . .It is wrong to attribute to Einstein the assertions that time, space and motion are relative, for two reasons: One, Einstein was an absolutist, who could not comprehend relativism; Two, others argued that time, space and motion are purely relative long before Einstein was born. ==

Hero Worship Excerpts from Chapter Four

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/heroworship.htm

Why is Albert Einstein's name associatedwith the "principle of relativity", and not Poincar's? Poincar stated it first, ten years before the Einsteins, and the Einsteins copied it from him. Who is to blame for this injustice? What could possibly motivate them, other than self-doubt and/or hero worship? The facts are clear to all willing to look. Albert Einstein did not originate the special theory of relativity. That is clear. . . . Since Poincare and Lorentz developed the theory, why aren't their names not only linked to the theory, but universally linked together? What makes the image of "Einstein" so sacrosanct, that it is today virtually a crime to tell the truth about the history of the special theory of relativity? Why, in the majority of the histories of the special theory of relativity, isn't Einstein,with his minor contribution of the relativistic equations for aberration and the Doppler-Fizeau effect (together withhis many blunders), the curious footnote of a persistent copycat, and not the central theme? Certainly, it is more convenient to briefly credit Einstein with everything, but, since the ideas are considered so significant, one would think the originators deserve their due credit. . . .Many people knew that Einstein did not hold priority for much of what he wrote. He, himself, was keenly aware of it. It is not uncommon for grandiose myths to accrue to overly idealized popular figures, such as Albert Einstein. Theoretical Physics, as a field, was small, and not well known in the period from 1905-1919. Theoretical physicists were not well known, and, since those in the field knew that Einstein was a plagiarist, they largely ignored him. In 1919, (on dubious grounds213) Dyson, Davidson and Eddington, made Einstein famous by affirming that experiment had confirmed, without an attribution to Soldner, Soldner's 1801 hypothesis, that the gravitational field of the sun should curve the path of light from the stars.214 Shortly after that, Einstein won the Nobel Prize, though it is unclear why he won it, other than as a reward for his new-found fame for reiterating Soldner's ideas, and for his pacifist stance during World War I. . . .Einstein did not invent the atomic bomb. In fact, he was ignorant of the concept of the bomb. However, with the help of Alexander Sachs, Einstein was chosen to write a letter to President Roosevelt urging him to instigate what would eventually become the "Manhattan Project", the effort to develop an atomic bomb before the Nazis. Due to hisignorance, Leo Szilard and Eugene Wigner had to explain the concept of the atomic bomb to Einstein, before he couldwrite the letter215. . . .When said program to develop an atomic bomb began, Einstein was not asked to participate, but rather was excluded from the research team. Why was Einstein, supposedly the most brilliant human being of all time, not a member of the team, which developed the bomb, and upon whose work the fate of all humanity might rest? ==

E=mc2 Excerpts from Chapter Five

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/emc2.htm

Contrary to popular myth, Einstein did not usher in the atomic age, in fact, he found the idea of atomic energy to be silly, 217 nor was Einstein the first to state the mass-energy equivalence, or E = mc2.218 Myths such as Einstein's supposed discoveries are not uncommon. Newton did not discover gravity, nor did he offer a viable explanation for it, nor did he believe that matter attracted other matter. . . .It appears that the physics community and the media invented a comic book figure,"Einstein", with "E = mc2" stenciled accross his chest. . . In anticipation of Thomson, De Pretto and the Einsteins, S. Tolver Preston formulated atomic energy, the atomic bomb and superconductivity back in the 1870's, based on the formula E = mc2,where celeritas, "c", signifies the speed of light. Pursuing Le Sage's theory, Preston believed that mass could be attenuated into aether, thereby releasing a tremendous store of energy; since aether particles move at light speed--alimiting velocity, the energy store is equal to mass times the square of the speed of light. Albert Einstein never even came close to such insights. . . . Maxwell's equations implicitly contain the formula E = mc2. Simon Newcomb pioneered the concept of relativistic energy in 1889.224 Preston, J.J. Thompson,225 Poincare,226 Olinto De Pretto,227 Fritz Hasenohrl,228 [etc.etc. etc.] each effectively (Albert Einstein, himself, did not expressly state it in 1905), or directly, presented the formula E = mc2, before 1905, and MaxPlanck229 refined the concept in 1906 -1908, including Newton's230, Bessel's231 and Eotvos'232 implications that inertial mass and gravitational mass are equivalent - before Albert Einstein. Alexander Bain expressly stated in 1870 that, "matter, force, and inertia, are three names for substantially the same fact"

and,

"force and matter are not two things, but one thing"

and,

"force, inertia, momentum, matter, are allbut one fact".239 ==

Einstein's Modus Operandi Excerpts from Chapter Six

<http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/modusoperandi.htm>http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/modusoperandi.htm

"I don't find Einstein's Relativity agrees with me. It is the most unnatural and difficult to understand way of representing facts that could be thought of. . . . And I really think that Einstein is a practicalj oker, pulling the legs of hisenthusiastic followers, more Einsteinisch than he."-- Oliver Heaviside. "Einstein simply postulates what we have deduced, with some difficulty and not altogether satisfactorily, from the fundamental equations of the electromagnetic field. [***] I have not availed myself of his substitutions, only because the formulae are rather complicated and look somewhat artificial."-- Hendrik Antoon Lorentz.247 . . .Though Einstein cited Mach as a source of ideas,253 Mach rejected Einstein's relativity theory and asked nott o be associated with the "dogmatic" and "paradoxical" "nonsense", in spite of the fact that Joseph Petzoldt sought to give Mach his due credit for major elements of the theory of relativity.254 Einstein initially adored Mach, and asked for his guidance and help.255 When it became known,after Mach's death, that Mach rejected Einstein and his views, Einstein ridiculed Mach.256 . . .Einstein lacked the insight and reasoning skills needed to induce hypotheses, so he condemned the practice. He was forced, due to his inability to cope with the "higher degree of difficulty and complexity" needed to induce hypotheses, to copy hypotheses from others, but sought to disguise the fact. Einstein insisted that empirical results be argued as first principles, in order to deduce the same phenomena as results, which are argued as first principles, in a fallacy of Petitio Principii. This is the method he used in his "theories" in order to assume credit for the induced hypotheses of others, which e then slipped into the theories somewhere in the middle, without rational justification, calling them "derivations". It was necessary for Einstein to discourage scientist from using proper method, lest they discover the irrationality of his unoriginal works. In so doing, he converted the scientific method into amethod of redundancy, whereby an empirical fact is deduced from itself. . . .Herbert Ives published a paper in1952, which argued that Einstein employed the same irrational method of Petitio Principii in "deriving" the mass-energy equivalence. . . . [Iveswrote,]

"What Einstein did by setting down these equations (as 'clear') was to introduce the relation

L / (m - m') c2 = 1.

Now this is the very relation the derivation was supposed to yield. It emerges from Einstein's manipulation of observations by two observers because it has been slipped in by the assumption which Planck questioned. The relation E = mM c2 was not derived by Einstein."273 ==

History Excerpts from Chapter Seven

<http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/history.htm>http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/history.htm

Historians all too often look to the conclusions of previous historians, rather than to the complete historic record,itself.280 Historians record their impressions and not history itself. They are politically motivated. Later historians all too often record the works of earlier historians, and the truth is lost in the process. Bias is a double-edged sword, which cuts both ways. Many who are aware that Einstein was not an original thinker wrongfully attribute the special theory of relativity to Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, often believing that Minkowski first set incement the notion of the uniform translation of space and the concept of four-dimensional being. Many worship Hendrik Antoon as a hero, just as manyworship Einstein as a hero. However, Lorentz and Minkowski deserve little more credit than does Albert Einstein. ==

Mileva Einstein-Marity Excerpts from Chapter Eight

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/mileva.htm

"How happy and proud I will be, when we two together have victoriously led our work on relative motion to an end!"-- Albert Einstein . . .In 1905, several articles bearing the name of Albert Einstein appeared in a German physics journal, Annalen der Physik. The most fateful among these, was a paper entitled ZurElektrodynamik bewegter K°rper; von A. Einstein, Einstein's supposedly breakthrough paper on the "principle of relativity". Though it was perhaps submitted as coauthored by Mileva Einstein-Marity and Albert Einstein, or solely by Mileva Einstein-Marity, Albert's name appeared in the journal as the exclusive author of their work285 . . . . Evan Harris Walker, who argued that Mileva was co-author, or sole author, of the 1905 papers, quoted some of Albert's words, as found in The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, and bear in mind that the vast majority of Mileva's letters to Albert were destroyed, with there being no more likely reasons for their destruction, than to hide her contribution and the fact that the works were unoriginal,

"I find statements in 13 of [Albert's] 43 letters to [Mileva] that refer to her research or to an ongoing collaborative effort -- for example, in document 74, 'another method which has similarities with yours.'

In document 75, Albert writes: 'I am also looking forward very much to our new work. You must now continue with your investigation.' In document 79, he says, 'we will send it to Wiedermann's Annalen.' In document 96, he refers to 'our investigations'; in document 101, to 'our theory of molecular forces.' In document 107, he tells her: 'Prof. Weber is very nice to me. . . I gave him our paper.'"298 . . .Why did the Nobel commitee not award Einstein the Nobel Prize for his work on relativity theory? Could it have been that all who were familiar with the facts, knew that Einstein did not originate the major concepts behind relativitytheory? . . . Mileva and Albert had coauthored papers before 299 and Albert had assumed credit for that which Mileva had accomplished.300 Senta Troemel-Ploetz presented a thorough account of Albert's shameless appropriation of Mileva's work and of Mileva's acquiescence.301 . . .Why didn't Mileva come forward with the fact that she was the one who had written the work, if in fact she had? Did Albert buy Mileva's silence? Even if he had, was there more to hold Mileva back from exposing Albert, than the desperat eneed for monies? ==

Politics and Anecdotes Excerpts from Chapter Nine

<http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/politics.htm>http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/politics.htm

Einstein repeated much of what H.G.Wells had accomplished, both in physics and politics. Wells holds priority on the concept of four-dimensional space-time, the atomic bomb, and many other innovations of thought. . . .Even some of Einstein's quaint scientific anecdotes have their prior cousins. He told a story of his supposed fantasy of traveling at light speed,334 the so-called "Aarau Question". This story isused as an example of Einstein's supposed independence from Lorentz. . .. However, this fantasy was the subject ofa novel popular among physicists o fEinstein's day written by famous aastronomer, Lumen, by Camille Flammarion. . . .In Einstein's famous lecture of 1922 in Japan,338 he recounts that he derived inspiration from "Michelson's experiment". Then, years later, Einstein denied having known of the experiment before the 1905 paper appeared.339 . . .Einstein claimed that he arose from bed once and wondered if events were absolutely simultaneous.342 Was Einstein reading Poincare, who had already expressly written that events are not absolutely simultaneous, in bed, before Einstein fell asleep? . . .Einstein is known to have read Poincare,349, and was aware of Lorentz'work, but denied knowledge of the so-called "Lorentz Transformation". Is it plausible to believe that Einstein, a supposed genius and master scientist,was completely unaware of Poincare's, Lorentz' and Larmor's works containing the so-called "Lorentz Transformation", and the principle of relativity, which were the talk of the physics community,350 and the then current literature on the subject of Poincare's "principle of relativity", and that it is coincidental that Einstein repeated much of what they wrote? . . . Einstein is seemingly awarded credit forevery scientific advancement and theory from the time of Newton up until Einstein's death. Does Einstein deserve that credit? ==

http://home.comcast.net/~xtxinc/AEIPBook.htm

"The appearance of Dr. Silberstein's recent article on 'General Relativitywithout the Equivalence Hypothesis'encourages me to restate my own viewson the subject. I am perhaps entitled to dothis as my work on the subject of GeneralRelativity was published before that ofEinstein and Kottler, and appears to havebeen overlooked by recent writers." --Harry Bateman

* * * "All this was maintained by Poincare andothers long before the time of Einstein,and one does injustice to truth inascribing the discovery to him." -- Charles Nordmann

* * * "[Einstein's] paper 'Zur Elektrodynamikbewegter Koerper' in Annalen der Physik.. . contains not a single reference to previous literature. It gives you theimpression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true." -- Max Born

* * * "In point of fact, therefore, Poincare was not only the first to enunciate the principle, but he also discovered in Lorentz's work the necessary mathematical formulation of the principle. All this happened before Einstein's paperappeared." -- G. H. Keswani

* * * "Einstein's explanation is a dimensionaldisguise for Lorentz's. . . . Thus Einstein's theory is not a denial of, nor an alternative for, that of Lorentz. It is only a duplicate and disguise for it. . . . Einstein continually maintains that the theory of Lorentz is right, only he disagrees with his 'interpretation.' Is it not clear, therefore, that in this, as in other cases, Einstein's theory is merely a disguise for Lorentz's, the apparent disagreement about 'interpretation' being a matter of word sonly?" -- James Mackaye

* * * "The secret to creativity is knowing how tohide your sources." -- Albert Einstein ==

(2) E =mc 2 is Not Einstein 's Discovery, by Robert A. Herrmann

(9 SEPT 2000. Revised 15 AUG 2002)

http://www.serve.com/herrmann/einpdf.pdf

(3) (Defending Einstein) Einstein Ripped Off!

http://www.ajnpx.com/html/Einstein-Ripped-Off.html

Arguably, the greatest scientist of the twentieth century, both by popular and scientific standards, is Albert Einstein (1879--1955). I intend to argue that the greatest philosopher of science of the twentieth century is also Einstein. ...

Einstein the Plagiarist?

Did Einstein plagiarize, or rip-off, other scientist's work? I think that this question is ludicrous on the face of it, but I'll answer it because the accusations are out there that he did. ... ==

(4) (Defending Einstein) 8.8 Who Invented Relativity?

<http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s8-08/8-08.htm

----- Peter Myers, 21 Blair St, Watson ACT 2602, Australia http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers ph +61 2 62475187 to unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the subject line


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