mysterious_man
03-03-2009, 17:12
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
المصدر:The other side of Albert Einstein (http://www.2ubh.com/features/Einstein.html)
The other side of Albert Einstein
Einstein has attained iconic status as a scientist and humanist but, as Tim Chapman discusses, he has also been labeled a plagiarist, philanderer, absent father and fraud.
Physics World, January 2005
Albert Einstein's standing as a scientific genius and cultural icon are second to none. His contributions to physics and his wider intellectual concerns have led to countless accolades: he was named "Person of the Century" by Time magazine five years ago and been voted the greatest physicist of all time by Physics World. But some believe that such glowing tributes are wide of the mark, and point to darker elements in Einstein's career and personal life.
Probably the most widely believed claim about Einstein's darker side concerns his first wife, Mileva Maric. Maric was also a physics student, three years older than Einstein, and rumours have spread since the early 1990s that she was the real brains of the partnership. The story reached its widest audience with the 2003 US television documentary, Einstein's Wife.
Maric came to general attention with the publication of the love letters between herself and Einstein as part of the Princeton Press' Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. The letters show that the two students discussed their work and planned to carry out research together, and that Maric supported her lover while he looked for work before they married in early 1903.
But did she collaborate on those vital papers of 1905 or even, as some critics claim, do the bulk of the work? Even the 2003 documentary admitted that the evidence was slim. The key piece of evidence waved by Mileva's advocates comes via the Soviet physicist Abram Joffe who, it is claimed, wrote in a 1955 obituary of seeing an original manuscript signed by 'Einstein-Marity' (a Hungarianised form of Maric), implying that the two originally shared credit. However, Joffe makes no claim about having seen the original papers, but believed that such a hyphenated surname was the Swiss custom.
"The fact there was nothing by Maric in her own name or co-signed with Einstein, either before she met him, while they were living together, or in the 30 years after they separated, I take as strong evidence that she never played a major creative role in his thinking," says John Stachel, director of the Center of Einstein Studies at Boston University, and editor of the Collected Papers.
Mileva did act as Einstein's amanuensis, checking his calculations and looking up data, but while he continued to discuss his work in his letters to her, Mileva often did not reply in kind. "We have one of his most important letters about the electrodynamics of moving bodies, and her response where she discusses everything else in his letter but that," Stachel adds. "There's no evidence she acted as anything more than a sounding board for his ideas."
Einstein's women
Einstein may not have cheated Mileva of her intellectual rights, but he was still far from the ideal husband. A year before they married, Maric gave birth to a daughter, Lieserl, while Einstein was away. The child's fate is unknown – she is presumed to have been given up for adoption, perhaps under pressure from Einstein, who is thought to have never seen his first born.
After the marriage, Mileva bore two sons but the family was not to stay together. Einstein began an affair with his cousin Elsa Lowenthal while on a trip to Berlin in 1912, leaving Mileva and his family two years later.
Einstein and Mileva finally divorced in 1919, but not until after Einstein sent his wife a list of 'conditions' under which he was willing to remain married. The list included such autocratic demands as "You are neither to expect intimacy nor to reproach me in any way". After the divorce, he saw little of his sons. The elder, Hans Albert, later reflected: "Probably the only project he ever gave up on was me." The younger, Eduard, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and died in an asylum.
Einstein married Elsa soon after the divorce, but a few years later began an affair with Betty Neumann, the niece of a friend. By one account, Elsa allowed Einstein to carry on with this affair to prevent him sneaking around. That relationship ended in 1924, but Einstein continued to have liaisons with other women until well after Elsa's death in 1936. He didn't remarry.
Einstein wanted and enjoyed the company of women, and his intellectual celebrity certainly wouldn't have hurt his chances with the socialites of Berlin or, later, the women of America. The relationships rarely lasted, however – usually once they were established, Einstein cooled off and looked elsewhere. Avoiding deep emotional ties in this way may have given him the solitude he needed to pursue his work, but few would find such behaviour admirable.
Questions of precedence
Accusations of plagiarism aren't limited to Mileva – it's also been claimed that Einstein stole the work of a host of other physicists.
One question which may remain moot is quite how much Einstein drew from the work of Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincare in formulating the theory of special relativity. Elements of Einstein's 1905 paper parallelled parts of a 1904 paper by Lorentz and a contemporary paper by Poincare. Although Einstein read earlier papers by the two, he claimed not to have seen these later works before writing the 1905 paper.
One apparently damning fact is that the 1905 paper on special relativity had no references, suggesting that Einstein was consciously hiding his tracks. "At the time, I don't think it was that unusual," Stachel notes. "There's no evidence that he ever consciously took from some source and neglected to mention it in order to get the credit himself."
Equally, there are questions over general relativity. One frequent accusation is that David Hilbert completed the general theory of relativity at least five days before Einstein submitted his conclusive paper in November 1915. Although there are marked similarities between the two men's work, and the two did squabble for some time over primacy, Stachel and other researchers have found that the first proofs for Hilbert's paper did not include the crucial field equations for general relativity. He says that these proofs were also based on Einstein's earlier rejection of the principle of general covariance, a central tenet of general relativity that shows that the laws of relativity hold for any inertial frame. Einstein's 1915 paper, in contrast, showed that relativity could be made generally covariant by adopting a new geometric model of space-time.
The man they love to hate
There's also a thriving set of more or less cranky claims that Einstein was, at best, misguided; and, at worst, a deliberate fraud. So why is Einstein such an attractive target? Stachel has identified three general reasons.
The first is anti-semitism. Many of Einstein's early critics in Germany were allied with the then-dominant Nazi party, including Nobel prize winner Johannes Stark. Some modern anti-Einstein theorists continue to quote these early critics without mentioning their political interest in promoting more "Aryan" physicists over the Jewish liberal Einstein.
In recent decades, some feminist critics have picked on Einstein in an attempt to show women are under-represented in the history of science. "On the human aspect there's much criticism to be made of Einstein's attitude to a number of women in his life, and Mileva Maric in particular, but that doesn't mean the ideas came from her or she was a great scientist," Stachel says.
Finally, there's simple iconoclasm. The physics community, in promoting Einstein as a kind of secular saint, has to take some of the blame. "Too much of an idol was made of Einstein," Stachel says. "He's not an idol – he's a human, and that's much more interesting."
mysterious_man
03-03-2009, 17:55
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
المصدر:http://www.allsc.info/vb/showthread.php?t=193
آينشتاين و"انتحال" نظرية النسبية !
على الشوك
حين كتبت مقالاً بعنوان "آينشتاين في الميزان", نُشر في "الحياة" في العام الماضي, كنت اشعر كأنني أطأ على أرض مرصوفة بالبيض, لأن هذا العالم احيط بهالة تكاد ترقى الى التقديس, والمسّ به يكاد يرقى الى التجديف. ولم اكن أعلم ان حذري الزائد هذا لا مبرر له, بعد ان نوّرني الانترنت بحقائق رهيبة عن سرقات آينشتاين, التي كشف النقاب عنها كريستوفر جون بيركنيس في كتابيه "البرت آينشتاين: المنتحل بلا حياء" و"ممهدات لآينشتاين في نظرية النسبية العامة". وفي انتظار ان يصلني هذان الكتابان اللذان اوصيت في طلبهما من دار النشر, رأيت ان اقدم عرضاً لما جاء في الانترنت عن الكتاب الاول, وآراء بعض من قرأه, حباً في ان يقف قراء "الحياة" على هذه الحقيقة:
http://www.daralhayat.com/supplements/horizsup/12-2004/20041207-08p18-02.txt/einstein_18.jpg_200_-1.jpg
جاء في مجلة "ميدويست بوك ريفيو" في ايلول (سبتمبر) 2002 عن هذا الكتاب, اعني "البرت آينشتاين: المنتحل بلا حياء": "استفزازي وغير هيّاب بالهالات التقليدية... آسر, وان يكن كتاباً مثيراً للجدل, لكنه معزّز من الجلد الى الجلد بمصادر شديدة الدقة". وقال عنه البروفسور امبرتو بارتوتشي في كانون الثاني (يناير) 2002: "قراءة هذا النص ينبغي ان تكون واجباً على جميع الناس المهتمين بتاريخ الفيزياء أو العلم".
وفي وصف للكتاب جاء في الانترنت: يورث اسم آينشتاين انطباعاً بالعبقرية, لكن هل كان البرت آينشتاين في واقع الحال, منتحلاً, نسخ نظريات لورنتس, وبوانكاريه, وغيربر وهلبرت؟ ان كتاب "البرت آينشتاين: المنتحل بلا حياء" الذي اعتُبر وثيقة اكاديمية عن انتحال البرت آينشتاين نظرية النسبية, يميط اللثام عن منهج آينشتاين في سرقة امجاد معاصريه, واعادة طبع انجازات الآخرين التي رددها كالببغاء, ويؤكد من خلال الحجة المنطقية ان البرت آينشتاين لم يكن في وسعه التوصل الى النتائج التي توصل اليها من دون العلم المسبق بالانجازات التي نسخها من دون ان يشير الى مصادرها. وان الكثير من المقتبسات من معاصري آينشتاين التي اعيد نشرها (في هذا الكتاب) تؤكد انهم كانوا على علم بانتحالاته.
ومن بين ما صرح به معاصروه, قال هاري بيتمان: "ان ظهور مقال الدكتور سلبرشتاين عن "النسبية العامة بلا فرضية المساواة" شجعني على التشديد ثانية على وجهات نظري الخاصة حول الموضوع. انني اجدني ملزماً بقول ذلك لأن عملي حول موضوع النسبية العامة كان نشر قبل عمل آينشتاين وكوتلره ويبدو انه أُغفل عنه من جانب الكتاب الحاليين".
وقال تشارلس نوردمان: "كل هذا كان بوانكاريه وآخرون أكدوه قبل آينشتاين بكثير, وان المرء انما يفتئت على الحقيقة اذا عزا هذا الاكتشاف اليه".
وقال ماكس بورن, الحائز جائزة نوبل في الفيزياء: "ان مقالة آينشتاين (زور الكتروديناميك بيفكتر كورير) في المجلة الحولية الفيزيائية لا تشير اي اشارة الى المصادر السابقة, انها تعطيك انطباعاً بانجاز جديد. بيد ان هذا, بالطبع, كما حاولت الاشارة الى ذلك, غير صحيح".
وقال ج. هـ. كسواني: "في واقع الحال, اذاً, لم يكن بوانكاريه اول من اعلن عن النظرية فحسب, بل انه اكتشف ايضاً في عمل لورنتس القوانين الرياضية اللازمة للنظرية. وهذا كله حصل قبل ظهور رسالة آينشتاين العلمية".
وقال جيمس ماكاي: "ان تفسير آينشتاين تنكّر لا مثيل له للورنتس... وبالتالي ان نظرية آينشتاين ليست انكاراً او بديلاً لنظرية لورنتس. انها نسخة مطابقة لها وتنكّر لها... وأكد آينشتاين باستمرار ان نظرية لورنتس صحيحة, سوى انه يختلف معه في طريقة تفسيره. أليس واضحاً, بالتالي, ان نظرية آينشتاين, في هذه, كما هي الحال في حالات اخرى, هي مجرد تنكر لنظرية لورنتس, وهل ان الاختلاف الظاهري حول (التفسير) لا يعدو ان يكون اختلاف كلمات؟". وعلّق قارئ من كاليفورنيا: "ان ما يعجبني في هذا الكتاب هو ان المؤلف يترك الكثير من العلماء والفلاسفة والرياضيين وآينشتاين , ينطقون بما يريد قوله. وان الفصول مؤرخة في معظمها, ومعززة بالاقتباسات الموثقة. ان الافكار المتعلقة بالنسبية جاءت قبل آينشتاين في اعمال اناس مثل فيوغت ولورنتس وبوانكاريه... الخ".
ويستشهد هذا القارئ بقول نيوتن عن نفسه في اشارته الى انه صعد "على اكتاف العمالقة", ويعتقد ان تفسير آينشتاين الجديد يُعتبر صوغاً جديداً مهماً, مستفيداً من افكار الآخرين, ويستدرك: ربما كان عليه ان يشير الى اعمال الآخرين اكثر مما فعل.
انتقل الآن الى سوزان لويس من لوس انجلوس التي خصصت لها الانترنت مساحة كبيرة نسبياً, وسأنقلها بحذافيرها, نظراً الى اهميتها.
واضح ان هذا الكتاب مثال جدل لكنه ينطوي على مصادر واقتباسات قيّمة عدة, ويقدم عرضاً تاريخياً كاملاً وموثقاً لنظرية النسبية. ان كل مطلع على معلومات غير متاحة لغيره يدرك ان آينشتاين اعتمد على زوجته الاولى, وان لورنتس وبوانكاريه اوجدا نظرية النسبية الخاصة قبل آينشتاين وزوجته الاولى, بيد ان التاريخ لا ينتهي هنا وان الكتاب يشير الى مصادر لورنتس وبوانكاريه المتعلقة بـ"تحويلات لورنتس" ومبدأ النسبية, و"الفضاء - الزمن". وبعد الاقتباس من الكثير من زملاء آينشتاين الفيزيائيين, واثارة الشكوك في ذهنك حول آينشتاين, يشير الكتاب الى المصادر الاصلية وكلمات آينشتاين التي تبدو مألوفة على نحو واضح. انه لمن الصعب عدم الاعتقاد بأن لا جديد تحت الشمس.
ان معظم الناس الذين يعلمون ان آينشتاين لم يبتكر نظرية النسبية الخاصة يعتقدون بأنه كان مجترح نظرية النسبية العامة (المتعلقة بالجاذبية), لكنني الآن صرت اشك في ذلك (ايضاً). فالمعادلة التي تفيد ان الطاقة تساوي حاصل ضرب الكتلة في مربع سرعة الضوء, والفضاء ـ الزمن, والقنبلة الذرية كلها لها تاريخ قبل آينشتاين ومنكوفسكي (القائل بإضافة الزمن كبعد رابع مع ابعاد الفضاء الثلاثة) تاريخ طويل كما يؤكد هذا الكتاب. ووجدت الفصل السادس (طريقة عمل آينشتاين) ممتعاً على نحو خاص. كنت اعتقد ان آينشتاين كان مبرزاً في استنتاج تحويلات لورنتس. ولم يخطر على بالي ان آينشتاين استجدى المسألة. ان كل افادة (في الكتاب) تقريباً موثقة بمصدر, وهو شيء مهم في كتاب يعتبر مثاراً للجدل. وقد تحريت عن نصين شككت فيهما, فتبين انهما صحيحان. وبعد قراءة الكتاب, عدت الى بعض كتابات آينشتاين وكتابه "نظريتا النسبية الخاصة والعامة". حقاً ان آينشتاين لم يعترف بمصادره وانا لا ادري ان كان بوسعك ان تبرهن بصورة قاطعة ان احداً كان منتحلاً ام لا. بيد انني اعتقد ان هذا الكتاب ذو صدقية ومنطقي وموثق بصورة جيدة جداً. وينطوي على قدر هائل من المعلومات. ويستبد الفضول بي كم من الهياكل العظمية سيخرج من الخزانة بعد ان ظهر هذا الكتاب الى الوجود. ان الدلائل الاجتماعية والتاريخية للموضوع تتسم بأهمية ايضاً. فيقيناً ان معظم الهالة من العبادة الشخصية لآينشتاين لا يستحقه. والكتاب يتطرق الى المقالات التي نشرها لانج وبيتمان ويطلبان فيها الاعتراف بأفكـارهما التي نشراها قبل آينشتاين. وانه لمدعاة للأسى انهما لم يفلحا في ان يُذكر اسماهما في الكتب التاريخية. وبعد قراءة هذا الكتاب, تغيرت وجهة نظري في آينشتاين بالكامل. لقد كان مخلوقاً سلطت عليه الاضواء وأعطي له الفضل في كل شيء في الفيزياء المعاصرة. لست ادري كم سرق من المجد وكم انعم عليه بما لا يستحقه. انني ارى هذا الكتاب ضرورياً لأنه يضع الحقيقة على نصابها. وقد قام بهذه المهمة على نحو حسن. فحتى لو لم يكن آينشتاين منتحلاً, فإنه لغريب ان نعلم ان الحقائق اكدت انه لم يجترح نظرية النسبية, في حين ان كل انسان تقريباً يعتقد بأنه فعل ذلك. والكل تقريباً يعتقد بأن نيوتن اجترح الجاذبية, لكن ذلك غير صحيح ايضاً.
وكتب قارئ من ولاية نبراسكا في تشرين الاول (اكتوبر) 2003 يقول: قبل ان نقفز الى النتيجة التي تؤكد ان آينشتاين انتحل نظرية النسبية, ينبغي القول بادئ ذي بدء ان النظرية نفسها معقدة جداً, علينا ان نقتفي اثر الفكرة حتى اصولها, وقد يبدو الخروج برأيي اصعب مما نتصور... فقد طرح بوانكاريه الفكرة ولعب لورنتس دوره ايضاً في تطويرها. بل اننا نلمس جذوراً للنظرية حتى في التفاصيل والتكامل (الكالكولوس).
إنه لمن الصعب, والحق يقال, رسم خط بين ما خلّفه البعض, وبين ابتكار البعض الآخر نظرية "جديدة" أو فكرة اصيلة. كان آينشتاين اول من قارن بين عناصر النظرية وصاغها في "معادلات نظرية النسبية". ولم يفعل هذا احد قبله. وكان آينشتاين اول من طبّق النظرية على العالم الفيزيقي نفسه. اما لورنتس وبوانكاريه فقد كانا رياضيين خالصين, ولم يكونا عالمي فيزياء.
تعقيب من كاتب هذه السطور (ع. ش): اعتقد ان هذا الكلام الاخير ينطوي على مغالطة وربما شيء من الاستغفال ايضاً. فلورنتس كان عالم فيزياء معروفاً ومرموقاً, ولُقّب بلورنتس العظيم, اما بوانكاريه فكان رياضياً وفيزيائياً على حد سواء. ولا بد من الاشارة ايضاً, الى ان كتب الفيزياء في العقود الاولى كانت تذكر اسمي آينشتاين ولورنتس سوية باعتبارهما مبتكري نظرية النسبية, ثم تبخّر اسم لورنتس في ما بعد!
ويستدرك صاحب المداخلة اعلاه, فيقول: كما نعرف جميعاً, في العلم نقف جميعنا "على اكتفاف الآخرين", لا احد, اكرر, لا احد يملك ان يكون العبقري الفذ لكل العصور.
واخيراً, يعلّق قارئ من ولاية ويسكونسون (ايلول 2003): من الظريف جداً ان كل هذه الحقائق عن آينشتاين ونظرية النسبية جمعت سوية في موقع واحد. كنت اتابع هذه الساغا Saga (قصة زاخرة بالاعمال البطولية) منذ زهاء عام, وأعتقد ان الكتاب يقول الحقيقة عن آينشتاين, وقد يتضايق بعض الناس اذ يرون التعرض لآينشتاين بهذه الصورة, بيد ان ذلك كله صحيح, وهو مثير للدهشة! هذا الكتاب يبرهن ان نظرية النسبية جاءت من مصادر عدة وان آينشتاين حاول الاستئثار بكل المجد له. انه لمن المضحك ان نقرأ ان آينشتاين قال الاشياء نفسها التي قالها اناس آخرون قبله, وكأنه فكّر فيها للمرة الأولى. وأريد ان ارى المزيد عن نظرية النسبية العامة. وانا اعلم ان آينشتاين لم يجترح هذه النظرية ايضاً. لكنني فوجئت كثيراً حين علمت ان زوجة آينشتاين كتبت المادة له. لقد تعلّمت الكثير من قراءة هذا الكتاب. وأحسب انه يرجع الى التأريخ أكثر من الكتب الاخرى التي قرأتها عن آينشتاين ولا يسعى الى تمجيد آينشتاين او منهجه. انه كتاب ذو صدقية عالية ويسعدني ان أرى مزيداً من الكتب على غراره. لقد قرأته من الغلاف الى الغلاف في جلسة واحدة.
عنوان الكتاب بالانكليزية:
Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist.
By Christopher Jon Bjerknes
mysterious_man
03-03-2009, 19:35
المصدر:http://allais.maurice.free.fr/English/Einstein1.htm
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Plagiarist of the Century
Einstein plagiarised the work of several notable scientists in his 1905 papers on special relativity and E = mc2, yet the physics community has never bothered to set the record straight in the past century.
Extracted from Nexus Magazine, Volume 11, Number 1 (December-January 2004)
PO Box 30, Mapleton Qld 4560 Australia. editor@nexusmagazine.com
Telephone: +61 (0)7 5442 9280; Fax: +61 (0)7 5442 9381
From web page at: http://www.nexusmagazine.com/
by Richard Moody, Jr © 2003
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USA
Email: Slmrea@aol.com
On the same subject see also : http://perso.wanadoo.fr/poincare.et.la.relativite (in french)
Abstract
Proponents of Einstein have acted in a way that appears to corrupt the historical record. Albert Einstein (1879&endash;1955), Time Magazine's "Person of the Century", wrote a long treatise on special relativity theory (it was actually called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", 1905a), without listing any references. Many of the key ideas it presented were known to Lorentz (for example, the Lorentz transformation) and Poincaré before Einstein wrote the famous 1905 paper.
As was typical of Einstein, he did not discover theories; he merely commandeered them. He took an existing body of knowledge, picked and chose the ideas he liked, then wove them into a tale about his contribution to special relativity. This was done with the full knowledge and consent of many of his peers, such as the editors at Annalen der Physik.
The most recognisable equation of all time is E = mc2. It is attributed by convention to be the sole province of Albert Einstein (1905). However, the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter was known to Sir Isaac Newton ("Gross bodies and light are convertible into one another...", 1704). The equation can be attributed to S. Tolver Preston (1875), to Jules Henri Poincaré (1900; according to Brown, 1967) and to Olinto De Pretto (1904) before Einstein. Since Einstein never correctly derived E = mc2 (Ives, 1952), there appears nothing to connect the equation with anything original by Einstein.
Arthur Eddington's selective presentation of data from the 1919 Eclipse so that it supposedly supported "Einstein's" general relativity theory is surely one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of the 20th century. His lavish support of Einstein corrupted the course of history. Eddington was less interested in testing a theory than he was in crowning Einstein the king of science.
The physics community, unwittingly perhaps, has engaged in a kind of fraud and silent conspiracy; this is the byproduct of simply being bystanders as the hyperinflation of Einstein's record and reputation took place. This silence benefited anyone supporting Einstein.
Introduction
Science, by its very nature, is insular. In general, chemists read and write about chemistry, biologists read and write about biology, and physicists read and write about physics. But they may all be competing for the same research dollar (in its broadest sense). Thus, if scientists wanted more money for themselves, they might decide to compete unfairly. The way they can do this is convince the funding agencies that they are more important than any other branch of science. If the funding agencies agree, it could spell difficulty for the remaining sciences. One way to get more money is to create a superhero - a superhero like Einstein.
Einstein's standing is the product of the physics community, his followers and the media. Each group benefits enormously by elevating Einstein to icon status. The physics community receives billions in research grants, Einstein's supporters are handsomely rewarded, and media corporations like Time Magazine get to sell millions of magazines by placing Einstein on the cover as "Person of the Century".
When the scandal breaks, the physics community, Einstein's supporters and the media will attempt to downplay the negative news and put a positive spin on it. However, their efforts will be shown up when Einstein's paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", is seen for what it is: the consummate act of plagiarism in the 20th century.
Special Relativity
Jules Henri Poincaré (1854&endash;1912) was a great scientist who made a significant contribution to special relativity theory. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy website says that Poincaré: (1) "sketched a preliminary version of the special theory of relativity"; (2) "stated that the velocity of light is a limit velocity" (in his 1904 paper from the Bull. of Sci. Math. 28, Poincaré indicated "a whole new mechanics, where the inertia increasing with the velocity of light would become a limit and not be exceeded"); (3) suggested that "mass depends on speed"; (4) "formulated the principle of relativity, according to which no mechanical or electromagnetic experiment can discriminate between a state of uniform motion and a state of rest"; and (5) "derived the Lorentz transformation".
It is evident how deeply involved with special relativity Poincaré was. Even Keswani (1965) was prompted to say that "As far back as 1895, Poincaré, the innovator, had conjectured that it is impossible to detect absolute motion", and that "In 1900, he introduced 'the principle of relative motion' which he later called by the equivalent terms 'the law of relativity' and 'the principle of relativity' in his book, Science and Hypothesis, published in 1902". Einstein acknowledged none of this preceding theoretical work when he wrote his unreferenced 1905 paper.
In addition to having sketched the preliminary version of relativity, Poincaré provided a critical part of the whole concept - namely, his treatment of local time. He also originated the idea of clock synchronisation, which is critical to special relativity.
Charles Nordman was prompted to write, "They will show that the credit for most of the things which are currently attributed to Einstein is, in reality, due to Poincaré", and "...in the opinion of the Relativists it is the measuring rods which create space, the clocks which create time. All this was known by Poincaré and others long before the time of Einstein, and one does injustice to truth in ascribing the discovery to him".
Other scientists have not been quite as impressed with "Einstein's" special relativity theory as has the public. "Another curious feature of the now famous paper, Einstein, 1905, is the absence of any reference to Poincaré or anyone else," Max Born wrote in Physics in My Generation. "It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true" (Born, 1956). G. Burniston Brown (1967) noted, "It will be seen that, contrary to popular belief, Einstein played only a minor part in the derivation of the useful formulae in the restricted or special relativity theory, and Whittaker called it the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz"
Due to the fact that Einstein's special relativity theory was known in some circles as the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz, one would think that Poincaré and Lorentz might have had something to do with its creation. What is disturbing about the Einstein paper is that even though Poincaré was the world's leading expert on relativity, apparently Einstein had never heard of him or thought he had done anything worth referencing!
Poincaré, in a public address delivered in September 1904, made some notable comments on special relativity theory. "From all these results, if they are confirmed, would arise an entirely new mechanicsÉwould be, above all, characterised by this fact that no velocity could surpass that of lightÉbecause bodies would oppose an increasing inertia to the causes, which would tend to accelerate their motion; and this inertia would become infinite when one approached the velocity of light. No more for an observer carried along himself in a translation, he did not suspect any apparent velocity could surpass that of light: and this would be then a contradiction, if we recall that this observer would not use the same clocks as a fixed observer, but, indeed, clocks marking 'local time'." (Poincaré, 1905)
Einstein, the Plagiarist
It is now time to speak directly to the issue of what Einstein was: he was first and foremost a plagiarist. He had few qualms about stealing the work of others and submitting it as his own. That this was deliberate seems obvious.
Take this passage from Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (there are no references to Poincaré here; just a few meaningless quotes). This is how page 101 reads: "'On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies'...is in many ways one of the most remarkable scientific papers that had ever been written. Even in form and style it was unusual, lacking the notes and references which give weight to most serious expositions" (emphasis added).
Why would Einstein, with his training as a patent clerk, not recognise the need to cite references in his article on special relativity? One would think that Einstein, as a neophyte, would overreference rather than underreference.
Wouldn't one also expect somewhat higher standards from an editor when faced with a long manuscript that had obviously not been credited? Apparently there was no attempt at quality control when it was published in Annalen der Physik. Most competent editors would have rejected the paper without even reading it. At the barest minimum, one would expect the editor to research the literature to determine whether Einstein's claim of primacy was correct.
Max Born stated, "The striking point is that it contains not a single reference to previous literature" (emphasis added) (Born, 1956). He is clearly indicating that the absence of references is abnormal and that, even by early 20th century standards, this is most peculiar, even unprofessional.
Einstein twisted and turned to avoid plagiarism charges, but these were transparent.
From Bjerknes (2002), we learn the following passage from James MacKaye: "Einstein's explanation is a dimensional disguise 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 [case], as in other cases, Einstein's theory is merely a disguise for Lorentz's, the apparent disagreement about 'interpretation' being a matter of words only?"
Poincaré wrote 30 books and over 500 papers on philosophy, mathematics and physics. Einstein wrote on mathematics, physics and philosophy, but claimed he'd never read Poincaré's contributions to physics.
Yet many of Poincaré's ideas - for example, that the speed of light is a limit and that mass increases with speed - wound up in Einstein's paper, "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" without being credited.
Einstein's act of stealing almost the entire body of literature by Lorentz and Poincaré to write his document raised the bar for plagiarism. In the information age, this kind of plagiarism could never be perpetrated indefinitely, yet the physics community has still not set the record straight.
In his 1907 paper, Einstein spelled out his views on plagiarism: "It appears to me that it is the nature of the business that what follows has already been partly solved by other authors. Despite that fact, since the issues of concern are here addressed from a new point of view, I am entitled to leave out a thoroughly pedantic survey of the literature..."
With this statement, Einstein declared that plagiarism, suitably packaged, is an acceptable research tool.
Here is the definition of "to plagiarise" from an unimpeachable source, Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, 1947, p. 1,878: "To steal or purloin and pass off as one's own (the ideas, words, artistic productions, etc. of one another); to use without due credit the ideas, expressions or productions of another. To commit plagiarism" (emphasis added). Isn't this exactly what Einstein did?
Giving due credit involves two aspects: timeliness and appropriateness. Telling the world that Lorentz provided the basis for special relativity 30 years after the fact is not timely (see below), is not appropriate and is not giving due credit. Nothing Einstein wrote ex post facto with respect to Lorentz's contributions alters the fundamental act of plagiarism.
The true nature of Einstein's plagiarism is set forth in his 1935 paper, "Elementary Derivation of the Equivalence of Mass and Energy", where, in a discussion on Maxwell, he wrote, "The question as to the independence of those relations is a natural one because the Lorentz transformation, the real basis of special relativity theory..." (emphasis added).
So, Einstein even acknowledged that the Lorentz transformation was the real basis of his 1905 paper. Anyone who doubts that he was a plagiarist should ask one simple question: "What did Einstein know and when did he know it?" Einstein got away with premeditated plagiarism, not the incidental plagiarism that is ubiquitous (Moody, 2001).
The History of E = mc2
Who originated the concept of matter being transformed into energy and vice versa? It dates back at least to Sir Isaac Newton (1704). Brown (1967) made the following statement: "Thus gradually arose the formula E = mc2, suggested without general proof by Poincaré in 1900".
One thing we can say with certainty is that Einstein did not originate the equation E = mc2.
Then the question becomes: "Who did?"
Bjerknes (2002) suggested as a possible candidate S. Tolver Preston, who "formulated atomic energy, the atom bomb and superconductivity back in the 1870s, based on the formula E = mc2".
In addition to Preston, a major player in the history of E = mc2 who deserves a lot of credit is Olinto De Pretto (1904). What makes this timing so suspicious is that Einstein was fluent in Italian, he was reviewing papers written by Italian physicists and his best friend was Michele Besso, a Swiss Italian. Clearly, Einstein (1905b) would have had access to the literature and the competence to read it. In "Einstein's E = mc2 'was Italian's idea'" (Carroll, 1999), we see clear evidence that De Pretto was ahead of Einstein in terms of the formula E = mc2.
In terms of his understanding the vast amount of energy that could be released with a small amount of mass, Preston (1875) can be credited with knowing this before Einstein was born. Clearly, Preston was using the E = mc2 formula in his work, because the value he determined - e.g., that one grain could lift a 100,000-ton object up to a height of 1.9 miles - yields the equation E = mc2.
According to Ives (1952), the derivation Einstein attempted of the formula E = mc2 was fatally flawed because Einstein set out to prove what he assumed. This is similar to the careless handling of the equations for radioactive decay which Einstein derived. It turns out that Einstein mixed kinematics and mechanics, and out popped the neutrino. The neutrino may be a mythical particle accidentally created by Einstein (Carezani, 1999). We have two choices with respect to neutrinos: there are at least 40 different types or there are zero types. Occam's razor rules here.
The Eclipse of 1919
There can be no clearer definition of scientific fraud than what went on in the Tropics on May 29, 1919. What is particularly clear is that Eddington fudged the solar eclipse data to make the results conform to "Einstein's" work on general relativity. Poor (1930), Brown (1967), Clark (1984) and McCausland (2001) all address the issues surrounding this eclipse.
What makes the expeditions to Sobral and Principe so suspect is Eddington's zealous support of Einstein, as can be seen in his statement, "By standing foremost in testing, and ultimately verifying the 'enemy' theory, our national observatory kept alive the finest traditions of science..." (emphasis added) (Clark, 1984). In this instance, apparently Eddington was not familiar with the basic tenets of science. His job was to collect data - not verify Einstein's theories.
Further evidence for the fraud can be deduced from Eddington's own statements and the introduction to them provided by Clark (ibid., p. 285): "May 29 began with heavy rain, which stopped only about noon. Not until 1.30 pm when the eclipse had already begun did the party get its first glimpse of the sun: 'We had to carry out our programme of photographs on faith...'" (emphasis added). Eddington reveals his true prejudice: he was willing to do anything to see that Einstein was proved right. But Eddington was not to be deterred: "It looked as though the effort, so far as the Principe expedition was concerned, might have been abortive"; "We developed the photographs, two each night for six nights after the eclipseÉ The cloudy weather upset my plans and I had to treat the measures in a different way from what I intended; consequently I have not been able to make any preliminary announcement of the result" (emphasis added) (Clark, ibid.).
Actually, Eddington's words speak volumes about the result. As soon as he found one shred of evidence that was consistent with "Einstein's" general relativity theory, he immediately proclaimed it as proof of the theory. Is this science?
Where were the astronomers when Eddington presented his findings? Did anyone besides Eddington actually look at the photographic plates? Poor did, and he completely repudiated the findings of Eddington. This should have given pause to any ethical scientist.
Here are some quotes from Poor's summary: "The mathematical formula, by which Einstein calculated his deflection of 1.75 seconds for light rays passing the edge of the sun, is a well known and simple formula of physical optics"; "Not a single one of the fundamental concepts of varying time, or warped or twisted space, of simultaneity, or of the relativity of motion is in any way involved in Einstein's prediction of, or formulas for, the deflection of light"; "The many and elaborate eclipse expeditions have, therefore, been given a fictitious importance. Their results can neither prove nor disprove the relativity theory" (emphasis added) (Poor, 1930).
From Brown (1967), we learn that Eddington couldn't wait to get it out to the world community that Einstein's theory was confirmed. What Eddington based this on was a premature assessment of the photographic plates. Initially, stars did "appear" to bend as they should, as required by Einstein, but then, according to Brown, the unexpected happened: several stars were then observed to bend in a direction transverse to the expected direction and still others to bend in a direction opposite to that predicted by relativity.
The absurdity of the data collected during the Eclipse of 1919 was demonstrated by Poor (1930), who pointed out that 85% of the data were discarded from the South American eclipse due to "accidental error", i.e., it contradicted Einstein's scale constant. By a strange coincidence, the 15% of the "good" data were consistent with Einstein's scale constant. Somehow, the stars that did not conform to Einstein's theories conveniently got temporarily shelved - and the myth began.
So, based on a handful of ambiguous data points, 200 years of theory, experimentation and observation were cast aside to make room for Einstein. Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking (1999). It is difficult to comprehend how Hawking could comment that "The new theory of curved space-time was called general relativity. It was confirmed in spectacular fashion in 1919, when a British expedition to West Africa observed a slight shift in the position of stars near the sun during an eclipse. Their light, as Einstein had predicted, was bent as it passed the sun. Here was direct evidence that space and time were warped". Does Hawking honestly believe that a handful of data points, massaged more thoroughly than a side of Kobe beef, constitutes the basis for overthrowing a paradigm that had survived over two centuries of acid scrutiny?
The real question, though, is: "Where was Einstein in all this?" Surely, by the time he wrote his 1935 paper, he must have known of the work of Poor: "The actual stellar displacements, if real, do not show the slightest resemblance to the predicted Einstein deflections: they do not agree in direction, in size, or the rate of decrease with distance from the sun". Why didn't he go on the record and address a paper that directly contradicted his work? Why haven't the followers of Einstein tried to set the record straight with respect to the bogus data of 1919?
What makes this so suspicious is that both the instruments and the physical conditions were not conducive to making measurements of great precision. As pointed out in a 2002 Internet article by the British Institute of Precise Physics, the cap cameras used in the expeditions were accurate to only 1/25th of a degree. This meant that just for the cap camera uncertainty alone, Eddington was reading values over 200 times too precise.
McCausland (2001) quotes the former Editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox: "They [Crommelin and Eddington] were bent on measuring the deflection of light"; "What is not so well documented is that the measurements in 1919 were not particularly accurate"; "In spite of the fact that experimental evidence for relativity seems to have been very flimsy in 1919, Einstein's enormous fame has remained intact and his theory has ever since been held to be one of the highest achievements of human thought" (emphasis added).
It is clear that from the outset Eddington was in no way interested in testing "Einstein's" theory; he was only interested in confirming it. One of the motivating factors in Eddington's decision to promote Einstein was that both men shared a similar political persuasion: pacifism. To suggest that politics played no role in Eddington's glowing support of Einstein, one need ask only one question: "Would Eddington have been so quick to support Einstein if Einstein had been a hawk?" This is no idle observation. Eddington took his role as the great peacemaker very seriously. He wanted to unite British and German scientists after World War I. What better way than to elevate the "enemy" theorist Einstein to exalted status? In his zeal to become peacemaker, Eddington lost the fundamental objectivity that is the essential demeanour of any true scientist. Eddington ceased to be a scientist and, instead, became an advocate for Einstein.
The obvious fudging of the data by Eddington and others is a blatant subversion of scientific process and may have misdirected scientific research for the better part of a century. It probably surpasses the Piltdown Man as the greatest hoax of 20th-century science. The BIPP asked, "Was this the hoax of the century?" and exclaimed, "Royal Society 1919 Eclipse Relativity Report Duped World for 80 Years!" McCausland stated that "In the author's opinion, the confident announcement of the decisive confirmation of Einstein's general theory in November 1919 was not a triumph of science, as it is often portrayed, but one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of 20th-century science".
It cannot be emphasised enough that the Eclipse of 1919 made Einstein, Einstein. It propelled him to international fame overnight, despite the fact that the data were fabricated and there was no support for general relativity whatsoever. This perversion of history has been known about for over 80 years and is still supported by people like Stephen Hawking and David Levy.
Summary and Conclusions
The general public tends to believe that scientists are the ultimate defenders of ethics, that scientific rigour is the measure of truth. Little do people realise how science is conducted in the presence of personality.
It seems that Einstein believed he was above scientific protocol. He thought he could bend the rules to his own liking and get away with it; hang in there long enough and his enemies would die off and his followers would win the day. In science, the last follower standing wins - and gets to write history. In the case of Einstein, his blatant and repeated dalliance with plagiarism is all but forgotten and his followers have borrowed repeatedly from the discoveries of other scientists and used them to adorn Einstein's halo.
Einstein's reputation is supported by a three-legged stool. One leg is Einstein's alleged plagiarism. Was he a plagiarist? The second leg is the physics community. What did they know about Einstein and when did they know it? The third leg is the media. Are they instruments of truth or deception when it comes to Einstein? Only time will tell.
The physics community is supported by a multi-legged stool. The first leg is Einstein's stature. The second leg is the hard nucleus that will be toppled by cold fusion. This third leg is relativity that will be superseded by Autodynamics. Other legs of the stool may fall as well. The overwhelming problem with a multi-legged stool is that if enough legs are sawed off, the stool will collapse. It is predictable that physics may collapse.
Science is a multi-legged stool. One leg is physics; a second leg is the earth sciences; a third, biology; and a fourth, chemistry (e.g., cold fusion). What will happen if, for the sake of argument, physics collapses? Will science fall?
References:
¥ Bjerknes, C.J. (2002), Albert Einstein: The Incorrigible Plagiarist, XTX Inc., Dowers Grove.
¥ Born, M. (1956), Physics in My Generation, Pergamon Press, London, p. 193.
¥ Brown, G. Burniston (1967), "What is wrong with relativity?", Bull. of the Inst. of Physics and Physical Soc., pp. 71-77.
¥ Carezani, R. (1999), Autodynamics: Fundamental Basis for a New Relativistic Mechanics, SAA, Society for the Advancement of Autodynamics.
¥ Carroll, R., "Einstein's E = mc2 'was Italian's idea'", The Guardian, November 11, 1999.
¥ Clark, R.W. (1984), Einstein: The Life and Times, Avon Books, New York.
¥ De Pretto, O. (1904), "Ipotesi dell'etere nella vita dell'universo", Reale Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, Feb. 1904, tomo LXIII, parte II, pp. 439-500.
¥ Einstein, A. (1905a), "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper" ("On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies"), Annalen der Physik 17:37-65.
¥ Einstein, A. (1905b), Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on its Energy Content?", Annalen der Physik 18:639-641.
¥ Einstein, A. (1907), "Über die vom Relativitätspringzip geforderte Trägheit der Energie", Annalen der Physik 23(4):371-384 (quote on p. 373).
¥ Einstein, A. (1935), "Elementary Derivation of the Equivalence of Mass and Energy", Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 61:223-230 (first delivered as The Eleventh Josiah Willard Gibbs Lecture at a joint meeting of the American Physical Society and Section A of the AAAS, Pittsburgh, December 28, 1934).
¥ Hawking, S., "Person of the Century", Time Magazine, December 31, 1999.
¥ Ives, H.E. (1952), "Derivation of the Mass-Energy Relation", J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 42:540-543.
¥ Keswani, G.H. (1965), "Origin and Concept of Relativity", Brit. J. Phil. Soc. 15:286-306.
¥ Mackaye, J. (1931), The Dynamic Universe, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, pp. 42-43.
¥ Maddox, J. (1995), "More Precise Solar-limb Light-bending", Nature 377:11.
¥ Moody, R., Jr (2001), "Plagiarism Personified", Mensa Bull. 442(Feb):5.
¥ Newton, Sir Isaac (1704), Opticks, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, p. cxv.
¥ Nordman, C. (1921), Einstein et l'univers, translated by Joseph McCabe as "Einstein and the Universe", Henry Holt and Co., New York, pp. 10-11, 16 (from Bjerknes, 2002).
¥ Poincaré, J.H. (1905), "The Principles of Mathematical Physics", The Monist, vol. XV, no. 1, January 1905; from an address delivered before the International Congress of Arts and Sciences, St Louis, September 1904.
¥ Poor, C.L. (1930), "The Deflection of Light as Observed at Total Solar Eclipses", J. Opt. Soc. Amer. 20:173-211.
¥ The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Jules Henri Poincaré (1854&endash;1912), at http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/poincare.htm.
¥ Webster, N. (1947), Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language, Second Edition, Unabridged, p. 1878.
About the Author:
Richard Moody, Jr, has a Master's Degree in Geology, is the author of three books on chess theory and has written for the Mensa Bulletin. For the past four years, he has done intensive research into Albert Einstein.
He can be contacted by email at Slmrea@aol.com.
Note by the webmaster
I wish to add some personal remarks to the above article.
These remarks relate to the political climate prevailing between France and Germany during these years which preceded the First World War. It was really a very bad climate which may bring some light on the misbehaviour of the young Einstein (26 years old). He may have been manipulated by his editors, who bear an overwhelming responsability.
Obviously, the plagiarism in 1905 by Einstein of Lorentz's and Poincaré 's ideas has necessitated the entire complicity of the editors of the Annalen der Physik.
Yet, it is somewhat difficult to admit that Einstein could not know the work of Poincaré. But as regards the editors, this is strictly impossible.
How these people belonging to the medium of the scientific editions could make such a filoutery with regard to a scientist as eminent and known over the world as was Poincaré? How could they admit to publish the paper of Einstein not comprising any reference, whereas it is an absolute rule practised internationally in editions of this kind, violating thus knowingly and deliberately the ethics of their own profession?
It is interesting to remind the political climate between France and Germany in these years which preceded the First World War. It cannot in any way be an excuse but it may be an explanation.
Let's remind :
In the middle of 1904, the policy followed by Delcassé, the French Foreign Minister, goes from success in success: reinforcement of Russian alliance, bringing together very marked with Italy, friendly understanding with England, agreement in sight with Spain.
In particular, the conclusion on April 8, 1904 of the Franco-British agreements ulcerated the German emperor Wilhelm II who was completely kept away of this important negotiation. When in October 1904, Spain adheres to the part of the Franco-British agreements relating to Morocco, irritation grows in Berlin. A first Franco-German hitch occurs in January 1905 when France installs in Morocco some French public servants to help the creation of the moroccan administration. The German government declares that it feels by no means committed in Morocco by agreements concluded apart from him.
While all this was going on, the yacht of Wilhelm II arrives to Tangier on March 31, 1905. He lets know clearly his will to be opposed to the French interests.
On April 25, 1905, the British ambassador in Paris, Sir Francis Bertie, gives to the French government a memorandum specifying that if Germany claimed a port in Morocco, the British government would act in concert with the French government " to be opposed to it firmly. "
In Germany, the climate hardens clearly so much so that the word of "war" is propagated by emissary which traverse Europe with alarming noises.
On June 6, 1905, during a dramatic Council of Ministers in the Elysee House, the question is put: Is it possible to continue in the direction of the reinforcement of a Franco-British agreement which is likely to involve the war? To calm the play, Delcassé resigns.
On June 26, 1905, the President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, advises France to give up and to accept the internationalization of the Moroccan affairs. It will be the Conference of Algeciras.
It results from what precedes that the Franco-German climate in 1904 and 1905 was more than hateful. Already maintained by the question of Alsace Lorraine, all were ready to fight and one can be assured that the public opinions of the two countries followed these events with passion.
In this context, to diddle Poincaré was a kind of revenge that a small editor offered to his country against these Frenchmen who tread on their toes…
But it must also be said that Einstein accepted it without any scruple and never expressed any remorse...
With regard to the editor of Annalen der Physik, the physicist Paul
DRUDE, it should be known that he committed suicide the following year
in July 1906. All the German scientists certainly knew about the plagiarism
and it is probable that many of them become indignant about it. DRUDE had to
become aware of the hugeness of his fault and drew to the conclusions.
Michel Gendrot
mysterious_man
08-03-2009, 18:54
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته
المصدر:The other side of Albert Einstein (http://www.2ubh.com/features/Einstein.html)
The other side of Albert Einstein
Einstein has attained iconic status as a scientist and humanist but, as Tim Chapman discusses, he has also been labeled a plagiarist, philanderer, absent father and fraud.
Physics World, January 2005
Albert Einstein's standing as a scientific genius and cultural icon are second to none. His contributions to physics and his wider intellectual concerns have led to countless accolades: he was named "Person of the Century" by Time magazine five years ago and been voted the greatest physicist of all time by Physics World. But some believe that such glowing tributes are wide of the mark, and point to darker elements in Einstein's career and personal life.
Probably the most widely believed claim about Einstein's darker side concerns his first wife, Mileva Maric. Maric was also a physics student, three years older than Einstein, and rumours have spread since the early 1990s that she was the real brains of the partnership. The story reached its widest audience with the 2003 US television documentary, Einstein's Wife.
Maric came to general attention with the publication of the love letters between herself and Einstein as part of the Princeton Press' Collected Papers of Albert Einstein. The letters show that the two students discussed their work and planned to carry out research together, and that Maric supported her lover while he looked for work before they married in early 1903.
But did she collaborate on those vital papers of 1905 or even, as some critics claim, do the bulk of the work? Even the 2003 documentary admitted that the evidence was slim. The key piece of evidence waved by Mileva's advocates comes via the Soviet physicist Abram Joffe who, it is claimed, wrote in a 1955 obituary of seeing an original manuscript signed by 'Einstein-Marity' (a Hungarianised form of Maric), implying that the two originally shared credit. However, Joffe makes no claim about having seen the original papers, but believed that such a hyphenated surname was the Swiss custom.
"The fact there was nothing by Maric in her own name or co-signed with Einstein, either before she met him, while they were living together, or in the 30 years after they separated, I take as strong evidence that she never played a major creative role in his thinking," says John Stachel, director of the Center of Einstein Studies at Boston University, and editor of the Collected Papers.
Mileva did act as Einstein's amanuensis, checking his calculations and looking up data, but while he continued to discuss his work in his letters to her, Mileva often did not reply in kind. "We have one of his most important letters about the electrodynamics of moving bodies, and her response where she discusses everything else in his letter but that," Stachel adds. "There's no evidence she acted as anything more than a sounding board for his ideas."
Einstein's women
Einstein may not have cheated Mileva of her intellectual rights, but he was still far from the ideal husband. A year before they married, Maric gave birth to a daughter, Lieserl, while Einstein was away. The child's fate is unknown – she is presumed to have been given up for adoption, perhaps under pressure from Einstein, who is thought to have never seen his first born.
After the marriage, Mileva bore two sons but the family was not to stay together. Einstein began an affair with his cousin Elsa Lowenthal while on a trip to Berlin in 1912, leaving Mileva and his family two years later.
Einstein and Mileva finally divorced in 1919, but not until after Einstein sent his wife a list of 'conditions' under which he was willing to remain married. The list included such autocratic demands as "You are neither to expect intimacy nor to reproach me in any way". After the divorce, he saw little of his sons. The elder, Hans Albert, later reflected: "Probably the only project he ever gave up on was me." The younger, Eduard, was diagnosed with schizophrenia and died in an asylum.
Einstein married Elsa soon after the divorce, but a few years later began an affair with Betty Neumann, the niece of a friend. By one account, Elsa allowed Einstein to carry on with this affair to prevent him sneaking around. That relationship ended in 1924, but Einstein continued to have liaisons with other women until well after Elsa's death in 1936. He didn't remarry.
Einstein wanted and enjoyed the company of women, and his intellectual celebrity certainly wouldn't have hurt his chances with the socialites of Berlin or, later, the women of America. The relationships rarely lasted, however – usually once they were established, Einstein cooled off and looked elsewhere. Avoiding deep emotional ties in this way may have given him the solitude he needed to pursue his work, but few would find such behaviour admirable.
Questions of precedence
Accusations of plagiarism aren't limited to Mileva – it's also been claimed that Einstein stole the work of a host of other physicists.
One question which may remain moot is quite how much Einstein drew from the work of Hendrik Lorentz and Henri Poincare in formulating the theory of special relativity. Elements of Einstein's 1905 paper parallelled parts of a 1904 paper by Lorentz and a contemporary paper by Poincare. Although Einstein read earlier papers by the two, he claimed not to have seen these later works before writing the 1905 paper.
One apparently damning fact is that the 1905 paper on special relativity had no references, suggesting that Einstein was consciously hiding his tracks. "At the time, I don't think it was that unusual," Stachel notes. "There's no evidence that he ever consciously took from some source and neglected to mention it in order to get the credit himself."
Equally, there are questions over general relativity. One frequent accusation is that David Hilbert completed the general theory of relativity at least five days before Einstein submitted his conclusive paper in November 1915. Although there are marked similarities between the two men's work, and the two did squabble for some time over primacy, Stachel and other researchers have found that the first proofs for Hilbert's paper did not include the crucial field equations for general relativity. He says that these proofs were also based on Einstein's earlier rejection of the principle of general covariance, a central tenet of general relativity that shows that the laws of relativity hold for any inertial frame. Einstein's 1915 paper, in contrast, showed that relativity could be made generally covariant by adopting a new geometric model of space-time.
The man they love to hate
There's also a thriving set of more or less cranky claims that Einstein was, at best, misguided; and, at worst, a deliberate fraud. So why is Einstein such an attractive target? Stachel has identified three general reasons.
The first is anti-semitism. Many of Einstein's early critics in Germany were allied with the then-dominant Nazi party, including Nobel prize winner Johannes Stark. Some modern anti-Einstein theorists continue to quote these early critics without mentioning their political interest in promoting more "Aryan" physicists over the Jewish liberal Einstein.
In recent decades, some feminist critics have picked on Einstein in an attempt to show women are under-represented in the history of science. "On the human aspect there's much criticism to be made of Einstein's attitude to a number of women in his life, and Mileva Maric in particular, but that doesn't mean the ideas came from her or she was a great scientist," Stachel says.
Finally, there's simple iconoclasm. The physics community, in promoting Einstein as a kind of secular saint, has to take some of the blame. "Too much of an idol was made of Einstein," Stachel says. "He's not an idol – he's a human, and that's much more interesting."
الترجمة
الجانب الآخر لألبرت أينشتاين
اكتسب ألبرت أينشتاين مكانه كنموذج مثالي للعالم والإنسان، لكنه رغم ذلك، وفقاً لكلام تيم تشابمان، كان معروفاً كزير نساء وسارق لأفكار الغير ومحتالاً وأباً فاشلاً وغائباً.
عالم الفيزياء، يناير 2005
لا يمكن إنكار المكانة البارزة التي احتلها ألبرت أينشتاين كعالم فذ ونموذج حضاري. وقد حظيت إسهاماته في عالم الفيزياء واهتماماته الفكرية الواسعة بقبول هائل وتقدير لا حصر له: فقد أطلقت عليه مجلة تايمTime لقب "شخصية القرن" منذ خمس سنوات، كما نصبته مجلة عالم الفيزياء أعظم الفيزيائيين في العالم.
لكن هناك من يعتقد أن كل هذا الثناء إنما يشير إلى جانب مظلم من عمل أينشتاين وحياته الشخصية.
ومن أكثر الإدعاءات التي يصدقها الناس عن حياة أينشتاين هو زوجته الأولى ميليفا ماريك، والتي كانت طالبة فيزياء أيضاً، وكانت تكبر أينشتاين بثلاث سنوات. ومنذ بداية تسعينيات القرن العشرين انتشرت شائعة حول كونها هي العقل الحقيقي وراء الإبداعات العلمية لأينشتاين. وقد وصلت تلك الشائعة ذروتها عام 2003 مع ظهور الفيلم التسجيلي "زوجة أينشتاين" في التليفزيون الأمريكي.
وقد بدأ الاهتمام بشخصية ماريك مع نشر مجموعة الرسائل العاطفية التي تبادلتها مع أينشتاين، والتي طبعت في كتاب "الأوراق المجمعة لألبرت أينشتاين". ويتضح من خلال هذه الرسائل أن الاثنين كانا يناقشان أعمالهما، كما خططا للقيام ببحث علمي سوياً. كما ظهرت مساندة ماريك لحبيبها أينشتاين أثناء بحثه عن عمل قبل زواجهما في أوائل عام 1903.
لكن هل ساهمت ماريك في الأبحاث الحيوية التي قام بها عام 1905، أو كما قال بعض النقاد قامت بمعظم العمل؟
وقد أظهر الفيلم الوثائقي الذي أنتج عام 2003 أن الدليل على هذا إنما هو دليل واهٍ. أما الدليل الأساسي الذي استند عليه مساندو ميليفا، فيظهر من خلال عالم الفيزياء الروسي أبرام جوف الذي، كما يُزعَم، كتب عام 1955 عن رؤيته لنص أصلي بتوقيع "أينشتاين – ماريك"، بما يوحي بأن الإثنين (ماريك وأينشتاين) يشتركان في ما أنجزاه. لكن جوف لم يدعي رؤيته للأوراق الأصلية، لكنه يعتقد أن نموذج التوقيع المشترك كان وفقاً للتقاليد السويسرية.
أما جون ساتشل، مدير مركز دراسات أينشتاين في جامعة بوسطن ومحرر كتاب "الأوراق المجمعة"، فيقول: "في الحقيقة لا يوجد أي شيء باسم ماريك أو حتى بتوقيع مشترك مع أينشتاين، سواء قبل أن تقابله، أو أثناء حياتها معه، أو حتى أثناء ال 30 عاماً بعد انفصالهما. وهذا دليل قوي على أنها لم تلعب دور ابتكاري رئيسي في إبداعاته وتفكيره".
لقد كانت ميلفا بمثابة أمين السر بالسبة لأينشتاين، حيث كانت راجع حساباته وبياناته. لكن رغم استمراره في مناقشة عمله معها من خلال الرسائل، لم تكن هي ترد في نفس السياق. فيقول ساتشل: "لدينا أحد أهم رسائل أينشتاين التي تتناول الديناميكا الكهربية للأجسام المتحركة، وكان ردها على الرسالة هو مناقشة كل الأمور الأخرى التي ذكرت ما عدا هذه النقطة. ليس هناك دليل على أنها كانت أكثر من مجرد مستمعة لأفكاره".
النساء في حياة أينشتاين
قد لا يكون أينشتاين قد خان ميلفا بسرقة أفكارها، لكنه أيضاً لم يكن زوجاً مثالياً. فقبل زواجهما بعام أنجبت ميلفا ابنتهما ليزرل بينما كان هو غائباً. وحتى الآن فإن مصير هذه الابنة مجهولاً، لكن يرجح أنها قد عرضت للتبني ربما تحت ضغط أينشتاين نفسه، الذي يعتقد أنه لم ير ابنته أبداً.
وبعد الزواج رزقت ميلفا بولدين، لكن لم يكن مقدر للعائلة أن تبقى معاً. فقد تورط أينشتاين في علاقة مع ابنة عمه إلزا لوينهال أثناء رحلته إلى برلين عام 1912، وهكذا هجر عائلته لمدة عامين بعدها.
وقد وقع الطلاق بينه وبين ميلفا عام 1919، بعد أن أرسل إلى زوجته قائمة بشروطه لكي يبقى متزوجاً بها. وقد تضمنت هذه القائمة شروط متسلطة مثل: "ليس لكِ أن تنتظري مني أية مشاعر حميمة أو أن تحاولي التقرب مني بأي شكل من الأشكال". وبعد وقوع الطلاق لم يرَ أولاده كثيراً.
وقد صرح ابنه الأكبر هانز ألبرت لاحقاً: "أعتقد أن المشروع الوحيد الذي تخلى عنه هو أنا". أما ابنه الأصغر إدوارد، فقد أصيب بمرض الشيزوفرانيا ومات في مصحة.
وسرعان ما تزوج أينشتاين من إلزا بعد طلاقه، لكنه بعد سنوات قليله انغمس في علاقة أخرى مع بتي نيومان قريبة أحد أصدقائه. وقد تركته إلزا يستمر في هذه العلاقة حتى تتجنب تورطه في علاقات أخرى. ورغم إنتهاء هذه العلاقة عام 1924، استمر أينشتاين في علاقاته المتعددة مع النساء، حتى بعد وفاة إلزا عام 1936، لكنه لم يتزوج مرة أخرى.
كان أينشتاين يحب صحبة النساء ويستمتع بها، ولم تمثل شهرته العلمية عائقاً أمام تعرفه إلى النساء في برلين أو في أمريكا فيما بعد.
ولم تكن علاقاته تستمر طويلاً، ففور ضمان العلاقة كان أينشتاين يبدأ في البحث عن علاقة أخرى.
وربما يكون تجنب الارتباط العاطفي العميق هو ما كان يوفر له الوحدة المطلوبة للاستمرار في عمله، وهو السلوك الذي يقبله القليل من الناس.
استفسارات لها الأولوية
إن الاتهامات التي وجهت لأينشتاين بالسرقات العلمية لم تقتصر فقط على سرقة ميلفا، بل زعم أن أينشتاين قد سرق أعمال مجموعة من علماء فيزياء آخرين.
ويبقى السؤال الأكثر جدلاً هو ما مدى ما اقتبسه أينشتاين من أعمال هنريك لورنتز وهنري بوينكير في وضع نظرية النسبية الخاصة؟
إن عناصر بحث أينشتاين الذي وضعه عام 1905 تتشابه مع أجزاء من بحث وضعه لورنتز عام 1904 وبحث آخر معاصر لبوينكير.
ورغم أن أينشتاين قد قرأ أبحاث لهذين العالمين قبل ذلك، فإنه زعم عدم رؤيته لهذين البحثين قبل كتابته للبحث عام 1905.
وفي الواقع أن البحث الذي كتبه عام 1905 عن النسبية الخاصة ليس به أي مرجع، مما يرجح أن أينشتاين كان يخفي هذا عمداً. ويعلق ساتشل قائلاً: "لا أظن أن هذا كان غريباً في هذا الوقت. وليس هناك دليل على أنه كان متعمداً في الاقتباس من بعض المصادر وتجاهل ذكر ذلك ليحصل على السبق".
وكذلك يوجد بعض التساؤلات حول النسبية العامة، فهناك اتهام أن ديفيد هيلبرت أكمل نظرية النسبية العامة قبل أن يقدم أينشتاين بحثه الختامي بخمسة أيام، وذلك في نوفمبر عام 1915.
ورغم وجود تشابهات بين عمل الاثنين، وتشاجر الاثنين حول أسبقية كل منهما، فقد وجد ساتشل وغيره من الباحثين أدلة على أن بحث هيلبرت لم يتضمن المعادلات الحيوية للنسبية العامة. ويقول أن هذه الأدلة تعتمد على رفض أينشتاين المسبق لنظرية التغاير العام وهي جزء أساسي في نظرية النسبية العامة والتي توضح أن قوانين النسبية تستمر لأي من أطر القصور الذاتي.
وفي المقابل، فإن بحث أينشتاين الذي وضعه عام 1915 أوضح أن النسبية يمكن أن تتغاير من خلال تبني نموذج هندسي جديد من المسافة والزمن.
الرجل الذي يحبون كراهيته
هناك مجموعة أخرى من الإدعاءات أن أينشتاين كان مُضَلَلاً أو على أسوأ الفروض محتالاً.
لماذا يمثل أينشتاين هدفاً جذاباً للهجوم؟ يرى ساتشل أن هناك ثلاثة أسباب:
السبب الأول هو معاداة السامية، حيث إن معظم ناقدي أينشتاين في ألمانيا كانوا محالفين للحزب النازي في ذلك الوقت، بما في ذلك جوهانز ستارك الحائز على جائزة نوبل.
وهناك بعض النظريات الحديثة المعادية لأينشتاين التي تستمر في اقتباس آراء هؤلاء النقاد دون ذكر اهتماماتهم السياسية في تشجيع علماء الفيزياء من الأصل "الآري" أمام أينشتاين اليهودي الليبرالي.
وفي السنوات اللاحقة، قام بعض النقاد المناصرين لحركة المرأة بالهجوم على أينشتاين في محاولة منهم لإظهار الظلم الذي تعرضت له المرأة في تاريخ العلم.
ويعلق ساتشل قائلاً: "على المستوى الإنساني هناك الكثير من النقد يمكن توجيهه لأينشتاين بالنسبة لسلوكه مع النساء في حياته، خاصة ميلفا ماريك. لكن هذا لا يعني أن هذه الأفكار كانت أفكارها أو أنها كانت عالمة فذة".
وأخيراً، فإن بعض اللوم يقع على المجتمع العلمي الذي سعى إلى وضع أينشتاين في مكانة القديس. وكما يقول ساتشل: "لقد وضع أينشتاين في مكانة المعبود، لكنه ليس كذلك، فهو بشر وهو ما يجعله أكثر إثارة للاهتمام".