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How Einstein Lost His Bearings, and With Them, General Relativity (quantamagazine.org)
Kevin Hartnett, writing for Quanta magazine: Albert Einstein released his general theory of relativity at the end of 1915. He should have finished it two years earlier. When scholars look at his notebooks from the period, they see the completed equations, minus just a detail or two. "That really should have been the final theory," said John Norton, an Einstein expert and a historian of science at the University of Pittsburgh. But Einstein made a critical last-second error that set him on an odyssey of doubt and discovery -- one that nearly cost him his greatest scientific achievement. The consequences of his decision continue to reverberate in math and physics today.
Here's the error. General relativity was meant to supplant Newtonian gravity. This meant it had to explain all the same physical phenomena Newton's equations could, plus other phenomena that Newton's equations couldn't. Yet in mid-1913, Einstein convinced himself, incorrectly, that his new theory couldn't account for scenarios where the force of gravity was weak -- scenarios that Newtonian gravity handled well. "In retrospect, this is just a bizarre mistake," said Norton. To correct this perceived flaw, Einstein thought he had to abandon what had been one of the central features of his emerging theory. Einstein's field equations -- the equations of general relativity -- describe how the shape of space-time evolves in response to the presence of matter and energy. To describe that evolution, you need to impose on space-time a coordinate system -- like lines of latitude and longitude -- that tells you which points are where. Another interesting read on Quanta: Why Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Puzzle Keeps Puzzling.
Here's the error. General relativity was meant to supplant Newtonian gravity. This meant it had to explain all the same physical phenomena Newton's equations could, plus other phenomena that Newton's equations couldn't. Yet in mid-1913, Einstein convinced himself, incorrectly, that his new theory couldn't account for scenarios where the force of gravity was weak -- scenarios that Newtonian gravity handled well. "In retrospect, this is just a bizarre mistake," said Norton. To correct this perceived flaw, Einstein thought he had to abandon what had been one of the central features of his emerging theory. Einstein's field equations -- the equations of general relativity -- describe how the shape of space-time evolves in response to the presence of matter and energy. To describe that evolution, you need to impose on space-time a coordinate system -- like lines of latitude and longitude -- that tells you which points are where. Another interesting read on Quanta: Why Stephen Hawking's Black Hole Puzzle Keeps Puzzling.
In this era of computers and CPU's and constant distraction, he wouldn't have managed to get to even first realization. The Theory of Relativity was a triumph of abstract thought; this is something that doesn't really happen anymore.
What actually happens when matter turns to energy and back?
What's the difference between energy that is electromagnetic and energy that is motion?
Why the difference?
Can you turn motion energy into photon energy?
Why not?
Where does the value of C come from?
Why is there a limit at all?
Why is that limit exceeded by observation?
How come there are so many forces?
Why is gravity only an attraction force and others not?
What is time?
Why does inertia and momentum require time?
Why don't things happen instantaneuosly?
What if they do? How would we perceive that?
What would motion look like in a world where everything happens instantaneously?
What would that be perceived as to beings whose brains are built on the motion of electons?
I'm curious, perhaps someone can explain.
Gravity exists in the real word, independent of any coordinate system and it behaves consistently. There's no reason why it shouldn't be able to be described as such; we just don't know what that description is.
Saying that "oh noez Einstein ur on a wild goose chase!" is pretty darn silly.
'Mormon' was the correct answer - South Park
"he problem is you don't realize it until you can accurately calculate about 15 decimal places"
Huh? You can calculate to any number of decimal places by hand. What's your point?
Mostly random stuff.
Oh, hi Ken. Thanks for sharing your videos with us. But why post here 3x as AC? Just come out and own it.
the monumental effort to reconcile general relativity with quantum theory flounders in part because of the difficulty of developing a theory of quantum gravity that has the same general covariance Einstein achieved with his field equations. “In some sense you could argue the reason we don’t have an adequate quantum theory of gravity is we don’t know how to express the solutions to Einstein’s equations in a way that completely removes any kind of coordinate dependence,” said Weatherall.
It sounds like he recognized that there was something he couldn't explain, so he backed off a bit and looked for the explanation rather than charge forward and risk looking foolish.
"lost his bearings" and "greatest physicist of all time"
Don't do either of these, whoever writes about it.
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
That even on their best day bright, intelligent people can have a bad day? Maybe he didn't get laid or maybe he did and thought of a different angle. You'll never know the exact answer unless you were there so stop speculating.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Einstein did not "lose" general relativity, he just delayed publishing because he had doubts and was investigating them. The summary even says so on first paragraph.
... back.
WTF is this?
Hawking passes and we get Slashdot Esquire magazine?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Not only is Ken Wheeler testably false, but the falsify-ability of the electric/magnetic universe theories created the need for relativity.
If you think there's some physicist conspiracy to keep Einstein in that position, you're stupid wrong. When someone breaks Einstein with a repeatable, testable theory, they will unseat Einstein the same way Einstein unseated Newton.
In this era of computers and CPU's and constant distraction, he wouldn't have managed to get to even first realization.
Such a bad example. Darwin delayed much longer than Einstein and it's doubtful whether anyone forced his hand at all.
He was a brilliant thinker who deserves full credit. Wallace didn't come close in any way.
...and yet every experiment to verify Relativity has shown Einstein to have been correct, whether it was 4 years after, or 100 years after publishing. Your stupid fucking electric universe bullshit requires Relativity to be wrong, yet everything points to Einstein being right.
Your pseudoscience cult is just fucking stupid.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
There's a whole slew of videos explaining this stuff on youtube now, like these two (also look at Don Kennedy and Nick Lucid). I particularly like the photon box as an explanation of inertial mass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSKzgpt4HBU
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHRqibyNMpw
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I know the story of Wallace and Darwin and I'm no expert but I simply think it's wrong and I can at least point out an alternative version of history, see here https://www.theguardian.com/sc...
Eww - videos. How about explaining it in writing?
With a car analogy.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
AC - are you kidding? There is plenty to show that Mr. Eistein was human. Study the man, you'll see he had trouble with very simple stuff and was ridiculed as a boy. Thank God he was, it is probably what made him the man he became.