Relativity priority dispute

Albert Einstein presented the theories of special relativity and general relativity in publications that either contained no formal references to previous literature, or referred only to a small number of his predecessors for fundamental results on which he based his theories, most notably to the work of Henri Poincaré and Hendrik Lorentz for special relativity, and to the work of David Hilbert, Carl F. Gauss, Bernhard Riemann, and Ernst Mach for general relativity. Subsequently, claims have been put forward about both theories, asserting that they were formulated, either wholly or in part, by others before Einstein. At issue is the extent to which Einstein and various other individuals should be credited for the formulation of these theories, based on priority considerations.
Various scholars have questioned aspects of the work of Einstein, Henri Poincaré, and Lorentz leading up to the theories’ publication in 1905. Questions raised by these scholars include asking to what degree Einstein was familiar with Poincaré's work, whether Einstein was familiar with Lorentz's 1904 paper or a review of it, and how closely Einstein followed other physicsts at the time. It is known that Einstein was familiar with Poincaré's 1902 paper [Poi02], but it is not known to what extent he was familiar with other work of Poincaré in 1905. However, it is known that he knew [Poi00] in 1906, because he quoted it in [Ein06]. Lorentz's 1904 paper [Lor04] contained the transformations bearing his name that appeared in the Annalen der Physik. Some authors claim that Einstein worked in relative isolation and with restricted access to the physics literature in 1905. Others, however, disagree; a personal friend of Einstein, Maurice Solovine, acknowledged that he and Einstein pored over Poincaré's 1902 book, keeping them “breathless for weeks on end” [Rot06]. The question of whether Einstein's wife Mileva Marić contributed to Einstein's work has also been raised, but most scholars on the topic say that there is no substantive evidence that she made significant contributions.
Background.
In the history of special relativity, the most important names that are mentioned in discussions about the distribution of credit are Albert Einstein, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré, and Hermann Minkowski. Consideration is also given to numerous other scientists for either anticipations of some aspects of the theory, or else for contributions to the development or elaboration of the theory. These include Woldemar Voigt, August Föppl, Joseph Larmor, Emil Cohn, Friedrich Hasenöhrl, Max Planck, Max von Laue, Gilbert Newton Lewis and Richard Chase Tolman, and others. In addition, polemics exist about alleged contributions of others such as Olinto De Pretto who according to some mathematical scholars did not create relativity but was the first to use the equation. Also Einstein's first wife Mileva Marić, although her contribution is not considered to have any foundation according to serious scholars.
In his "History of the theories of ether and electricity" from 1953, E. T. Whittaker claimed that relativity is the creation of Poincaré and Lorentz and attributed to Einstein's papers only little importance. However, most historians of science, like Gerald Holton, Arthur I. Miller, Abraham Pais, John Stachel, or Olivier Darrigol have other points of view. They admit that Lorentz and Poincaré developed the mathematics of special relativity, and many scientists originally spoke about the "Lorentz-Einstein theory". But they argue that it was Einstein who completely eliminated the classical ether "and" demonstrated the relativity of space and time. They also argue that Poincaré demonstrated the relativity of space and time only in his "philosophical" writings, but in his "physical" papers he maintained the ether as a privileged frame of reference that is perfectly undetectable, and continued (like Lorentz) to distinguish between "real" lengths and times measured by observers at rest within the aether, and "apparent" lengths and times measured by observers in motion within the aether. Darrigol summarizes:
Most of the components of Einstein's paper appeared in others' anterior works on the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Poincaré and Alfred Bucherer had the relativity principle. Lorentz and Larmor had most of the Lorentz transformations, Poincaré had them all. Cohn and Bucherer rejected the ether. Poincaré, Cohn, and Abraham had a physical interpretation of Lorentz's local time. Larmor and Cohn alluded to the dilation of time. Lorentz and Poincaré had the relativistic dynamics of the electron. None of these authors, however, dared to reform the concepts of space and time. None of them imagined a new kinematics based on two postulates. None of them derived the Lorentz transformations on this basis. None of them fully understood the physical implications of these transformations. It all was Einstein's unique feat.
Undisputed facts.
The following facts are well established and referable:
Comments by Lorentz, Poincaré, and Einstein.
Lorentz.
In a paper that was written in 1914 and published in 1921, Lorentz expressed appreciation for Poincaré's Palermo paper (1906) on relativity. Lorentz stated:
However, a 1916 reprint of his main work "The theory of electrons" contains notes (written in 1909 and 1915) in which Lorentz sketched the differences between his results and that of Einstein as follows:
Regarding the fact, that in this book Lorentz only mentioned Einstein and not Poincaré in connection with a) the synchronisation by light signals, b) the reciprocity of the Lorentz transformation, and c) the relativistic transformation law for charge density, Janssen comments:
And at a conference on the Michelson–Morley experiment in 1927 at which Lorentz and Michelson were present, Michelson suggested that Lorentz was the initiator of the theory of relativity. Lorentz then replied:
Poincaré.
Poincaré attributed the development of the new mechanics almost entirely to Lorentz. He only mentioned Einstein in connection with the photoelectric effect, but not in connection with special relativity. For example, in 1912 Poincaré raises the question whether "the mechanics of Lorentz" will still exist after the development of the quantum theory. He wrote:
Einstein.
It is now known that Einstein was well aware of the scientific research of his time. The well known historian of science, Jürgen Renn, Director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science wrote on Einstein's contributions to the Annalen der Physik:
Einstein wrote in 1907 that one needed only to realize that an auxiliary quantity that was introduced by Lorentz and that he called "local time" can simply be defined as "time." In 1909 and 1912
Einstein explained:
But Einstein and his supporters took the position that this "light postulate" together with the principle of relativity renders the ether superfluous and leads directly to Einstein's version of relativity. It is also known that Einstein had been reading and studying Poincaré's 1902-book "Science and hypothesis" well before 1905, which included:
Einstein refers to Poincaré in connection with the inertia of energy in 1906 and the non-Euclidean geometry in 1921, but not in connection with the Lorentz transformation, the relativity principle or the synchronization procedure by light signals. However, in the last years before his death Einstein acknowledged some of Poincaré's contributions (according to Darrigol, maybe because his biographer Pais in 1950 sent Einstein a copy of Poincarè's Palermo paper, which he said that he had not read before). Einstein wrote in 1953:
Timeline.
This section cites notable publications where people have expressed a view on the issues outlined above.
Sir Edmund Whittaker (1954).
In 1954, Sir Edmund Taylor Whittaker, an English mathematician and historian of science, credited Henri Poincaré with the equation formula_4, and he included a chapter entitled "The Relativity Theory of Poincaré and Lorentz" in his book "A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity". He credited Poincaré and Lorentz, and especially alluded to Lorentz's 1904 paper (dated by Whittaker as 1903), Poincaré's St. Louis speech () of September 1904, and Poincaré's June 1905 paper. Whittaker attributed to Einstein's relativity paper only little importance, i.e., the formulation of the Doppler and aberration formulas. Max Born spent three years trying to dissuade Whittaker, but Whittaker insisted that everything of importance had already been said by Poincaré, and that Lorentz quite plainly had the physical interpretation.
Gerald Holton (1960).
Whittaker's claims were criticized by Gerald Holton (1960, 1973). He argued that there are fundamental differences between the theories of Einstein on one hand, and Poincaré and Lorentz on the other hand. Einstein radically reformulated the concepts of space and time, and by that removed "absolute space" and thus the stationary luminiferous aether from physics. On the other hand, Holton argued that Poincaré and Lorentz still adhered to the stationary aether concept, and tried only to modify Newtonian dynamics, not to replace it. Holton argued, that "Poincaré's silence" (i.e., why Poincaré never mentioned Einstein's contributions to relativity) was due to their fundamentally different conceptual viewpoints. Einstein's views on space and time and the abandonment of the aether were, according to Holton, not acceptable to Poincaré, therefore the latter only referred to Lorentz as the creator of the "new mechanics". Holton also pointed out that although Poincaré's 1904 St. Louis speech was "acute and penetrating" and contained a "principle of relativity" that is confirmed by experience and needs new development, it did not "enunciate a new relativity principle". He also alluded to mistakes of Whittaker, like predating Lorentz's 1904 paper (published April 1904) to 1903.
Views similar to Holton's were later (1967, 1970) expressed by his former student, Stanley Goldberg.
G. H. Keswani (1965).
In a 1965 series of articles tracing the history of relativity, Keswani claimed that Poincaré and Lorentz should have the main credit for special relativity - claiming that Poincaré pointedly credited Lorentz multiple times, while Lorentz credited Poincaré and Einstein, refusing to take credit for himself. He also downplayed the theory of general relativity, saying "Einstein's general theory of relativity is only a theory of gravitation and of modifications in the laws of physics in gravitational fields". This would leave the special theory of relativity as the unique theory of relativity. Keswani cited also Vladimir Fock for this same opinion.
This series of articles prompted responses, among others from Herbert Dingle and Karl Popper.
Dingle said, among other things, ".. the 'principle of relativity' had various meanings, and the theories associated with it were quite distinct; they were not different forms of the same theory. Each of the three protagonists... was very well aware of the others ... but each preferred his own views"
Karl Popper says "Though Einstein appears to have known Poincaré's "Science and Hypothesis" prior to 1905, there is no theory like Einstein's in this great book."
Keswani did not accept the criticism, and replied in two letters also published in the same journal ( and - in his reply to Dingle, he argues that the three relativity theories were at heart the same: ".. they meant much that was common. And that much mattered the most."
Dingle commented the year after on the history of crediting: "Until the first World War, Lorentz's and Einstein's theories were regarded as different forms of the same idea, but Lorentz, having priority and being a more established figure speaking a more familiar language, was credited with it." (Dingle 1967, Nature 216 p. 119-122).
Arthur I. Miller (1973).
Miller (1973, 1981) agreed with the analysis of Holton and Goldberg, and further argued that although the terminology (like the principle of relativity) used by Poincaré and Einstein were very similar, their content differs sharply. According to Miller, Poincaré used this principle to complete the aether based "electromagnetic world-view" of Lorentz and Abraham. He also argued that Poincaré distinguished (in his July 1905 paper) between "ideal" and "real" systems and electrons. That is, Lorentz's and Poincaré's usage of reference frames lacks an unambiguous physical interpretation, because in many cases they are only mathematical tools, while in Einstein's theory the processes in inertial frames are not only mathematically, but also physically equivalent. Miller wrote in 1981:
Miller (1996) argues that Poincaré was guided by empiricism, and was willing to admit that experiments might prove relativity wrong, and so Einstein is more deserving of credit, even though he might have been substantially influenced by Poincaré's papers. Miller also argues that "Emphasis on conventionalism ... led Poincaré and Lorentz to continue to believe in the mathematical and observational equivalence of special relativity and Lorentz's electron theory. This is incorrect." [p. 96] Instead, Miller claims that the theories are mathematically equivalent but not physically equivalent. [p. 91-92]
Abraham Pais (1982).
In his 1982 Einstein biography "Subtle is the Lord", Abraham Pais argued that Poincaré "comes near" to discovering special relativity (in his St. Louis lecture of September 1904, and the June 1905 paper), but eventually he failed, because in 1904 and also later in 1909, Poincaré treated length contraction as a third independent hypothesis besides the relativity principle and the constancy of the speed of light. According to Pais, Poincaré thus never understood (or at least he never accepted) special relativity, in which the whole theory including length contraction can simply be derived from two postulates. Consequently, he sharply criticized Whittaker's chapter on the "Relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz", saying "how well the author's lack of physical insight matches his ignorance of the literature", although Pais admitted that both he and his colleagues hold the original version of Whittaker's "History" as a masterpiece. Although he was apparently trying to make a point concerning Whittaker's treatment of the origin of special relativity, Pais' phrasing of that statement was rebuked by at least one notable reviewer of his 1982 book as being "scurrilous" and "lamentable". Also in contrast to Pais' overgeneralized claim, notable scientists such as Max Born refer to parts of Whittaker's second volume, especially the history of quantum mechanics, as "the most amazing feats of learning, insight, and discriminations" while Freeman Dyson says of the two volumes of Whittaker's second edition: "it is likely that this is the most scholarly and generally authoritative history of its period that we shall ever get."
Pais goes on to argued that Lorentz never abandoned the stationary aether concept, either before or after 1905:
Elie Zahar (1983).
In several papers, Elie Zahar (1983, 2000) argued that both Einstein (in his June paper) and Poincaré (in his July paper) independently discovered special relativity. He said that "though Whittaker was unjust towards Einstein, his positive account of Poincaré's actual achievement contains much more than a simple grain of truth"". According to him, it was Poincaré's unsystematic and sometimes erroneous statements regarding his philosophical papers (often connected with conventionalism), which hindered many to give him due credit. In his opinion, Poincaré was rather a "structural realist" and from that he concludes, that Poincaré actually adhered to the relativity of time and space, while his allusions to the aether are of secondary importance. He continues, that due to his treatment of gravitation and four-dimensional space, Poincaré's 1905/6-paper was superior to Einstein's 1905-paper. Yet Zahar gives also credit to Einstein, who introduced Mass–Energy equivalence, and also transcended special relativity by taking a path leading to the development of general relativity.
John Stachel (1995).
John Stachel (1995) argued that there is a debate over the respective contributions of Lorentz, Poincaré and Einstein to relativity. These questions depend on the definition of relativity, and Stachel argued that kinematics and the new view of space and time is the core of special relativity, and dynamical theories must be formulated in accordance with this scheme. Based on this definition, Einstein is the main originator of the modern understanding of special relativity. In his opinion, Lorentz interpreted the Lorentz transformation only as a mathematical device, while Poincaré's thinking was much nearer to the modern understanding of relativity. Yet Poincaré still believed in the dynamical effects of the aether and distinguished between observers being at rest or in motion with respect to it. Stachel wrote: ""He never organized his many brilliant insights into a coherent theory that resolutely discarded the aether and the absolute time or transcended its electrodynamic origins to derive a new kinematics of space and time on a formulation of the relativity principle that makes no reference to the ether".
Peter Galison (2002).
In his book "Einstein's clocks, Poincaré's maps" (2002), Peter Galison compared the approaches of both Poincaré and Einstein to reformulate the concepts of space and time. He wrote: "Did Einstein really discover relativity? Did Poincaré already have it? These old questions have grown as tedious as they are fruitless"." This is because it depends on the question, which parts of relativity one considers as essential: the rejection of the aether, the Lorentz transformation, the connection with the nature of space and time, predictions of experimental results, or other parts. For Galison, it is more important to acknowledge that both thinkers were concerned with clock synchronization problems, and thus both developed the new operational meaning of simultaneity. However, while Poincaré followed a constructive approach and still adhered to the concepts of Lorentz's stationary aether and the distinction between "apparent" and "true" times, Einstein abandoned the aether and therefore all times in different inertial frames are equally valid. Galison argued that this does not mean that Poincaré was conservative, since Poincaré often alluded to the revolutionary character of the "new mechanics" of Lorentz.
Olivier Darrigol (2004).
"In his 2004 article, "The Mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré Connection", Darrigol wrote:
Anatoly Alexeevich Logunov on special relativity (2004).
In Anatoly Logunov's book about Poincaré's relativity theory, there is an English translation (on p. 113, using modern notations) of the part of Poincaré's 1900 article containing "E=mc""2". Logunov states that Poincaré's two 1905 papers are superior to Einstein's 1905 paper. According to Logunov, Poincaré was the first scientist to recognize the importance of invariance under the Poincaré group as a guideline for developing new theories in physics. In chapter 9 of this book, Logunov points out that Poincaré's second paper was the first one to formulate a complete theory of relativistic dynamics, containing the correct relativistic analogue of Newton's "F=ma".
On p. 142, Logunov points out that Einstein wrote reviews for the "Beiblätter Annalen der Physik", writing 21 reviews in 1905. In his view, this contradicts the claims that Einstein worked in relative isolation and with limited access to the scientific literature. Among the papers reviewed in the "Beiblätter" in the fourth (of 24) issue of 1905, there is a review of Lorentz' 1904-paper by Richard Gans, which contains the Lorentz transformations. In Logunov's view, this supports the view that Einstein was familiar with the Lorentz' paper containing the correct relativistic transformation in early 1905, while his June 1905 paper does not mention Lorentz in connection with this result.
Harvey R. Brown (2005).
Harvey R. Brown (2005) (who favors a dynamical view of relativistic effects similar to Lorentz, but "without a hidden aether frame") wrote about the road to special relativity from Michelson to Einstein in section 4:
Regarding Lorentz's work before 1905, Brown wrote about the development of Lorentz's "theorem of corresponding states" and then continued:
Then the contribution of Poincaré's to relativity:
However, Brown continued with the reasons which speak against Poincaré's co-discovery:
Brown denies the idea of other authors and historians, that the major difference between Einstein and his predecessors is Einstein's rejection of the aether, because, it is always possible to add for whatever reason the notion of a privileged frame to special relativity, as long as one accepts that it will remain unobservable, and also Poincaré argued that "some day, no doubt, the aether will thrown aside as useless". However, Brown gave some examples, what in his opinion were the new features in Einstein's work:
After that, Brown develops his own dynamical interpretation of special relativity as opposed to the kinematical approach of Einstein's 1905 paper (although he says that this dynamical view is already contained in Einstein's 1905-paper, "masqueraded in the language of kinematics", p. 82), and the modern understanding of space-time.
Roger Cerf (2006).
Roger Cerf (2006) gave priority to Einstein for developing special relativity, and criticized the assertions of Leveugle and others concerning the priority of Poincaré. While Cerf agreed that Poincaré made important contributions to relativity, he argued (following Pais) that Poincaré "stopped short before the crucial step" because he handled length contraction as a "third hypothesis", therefore Poincaré lacked a complete understanding of the basic principles of relativity. ""Einstein's crucial step was that he abandoned the mechanistic ether in favor of a new kinematics." He also denies the idea, that Poincaré invented E=mc² in its modern relativistic sense, because he did not realize the implications of this relationship. Cerf considers Leveugle's Hilbert-Planck-Einstein connection an implausible conspiracy theory.
Shaul Katzir (2005).
Katzir (2005) argued that "Poincaré's work should not be seen as an attempt to formulate special relativity, but as an independent attempt to resolve questions in electrodynamics." Contrary to Miller and others, Katzir thinks that Poincaré's development of electrodynamics led him to the rejection of the pure electromagnetic world-view (due to the non-electromagnetic Poincaré-Stresses introduced in 1905), and Poincaré's theory represents a "relativistic physics" which is guided by the relativity principle. In this physics, however, "Lorentz's theory and Newton's theory remained as the fundamental bases of electrodynamics and gravitation"."
Scott Walter (2005, 2007).
Walter (2005) argues that both Poincaré and Einstein put forward the theory of relativity in 1905. And in 2007 he wrote, that although Poincaré formally introduced four-dimensional spacetime in 1905/6, he was still clinging to the idea of "Galilei spacetime". That is, Poincaré preferred Lorentz covariance over Galilei covariance when it is about phenomena accessible to experimental tests; yet in terms of space and time, Poincaré preferred Galilei spacetime over Minkowski spacetime, and length contraction and time dilation "are merely apparent phenomena due to motion with respect to the ether". This is the fundamental difference in the two principal approaches to relativity theory, namely that of "Lorentz and Poincaré" on one side, and "Einstein and Minkowski" on the other side.