Serious chronology problems: Einstein might have been influenced by Poincare, but not by Minkowski or Hilbert. Minkowski actually had a very low opinion of Einstein and probably thought that Einstein's outstanding contributions to SRT was just a fluke.
Hilbert got wrong the equations of GR, but this is not very well known. Yes, he got them a few days before Einstein.
Well, I am not sure I can agree with you.
You say: The concept of special relativity had been in development for several years..
It was not the concept of relativity, it was
the mathematics of what would later be called
special relativity. The concept of relativity
in this theory is mostly if not exclusively due to Einstein, who arrived at it from purely physical considerations. He did not need that mathematics.
As far as GRT and Gauss is concerned... What credit do you think deserves someone who even does not have guts to publish one's ideas.
That's precisely what happened to Gauss who never published his idea that the space can be curved because he was afraid to be laughed at...Mach might have some impact on GRT, perhaps even negative. Einstein pursued Mach's ideas, but this turned out to be a blind alley: GRT does not realize the so called Mach principle that Einstein tried to incorporate in GRT. Poincare had nothing of substance to contribute to GRT at all, unlike to the mathematics of SRT. As far as Leibnitz is concerned- I can only guess that his ideas were very vague and certainly of no impact on Einstein.
problems in physics (and so also easy to formulate) are likely to be uninteresting to physicists. Problems of this kind could be more interesting to engineers...On the other hand,
easy to formulate problems in mathematics can
be of some interest to professional mathematicians because mathematics, unlike physics, is an abstract science and has no engeeniering branch, where this kind of problems could be relegated to.
Slashdot Mirror
Hilbert got wrong the equations of GR, but this is not very well known. Yes, he got them a few days before Einstein.
The concept of special relativity had been in development for several years..
It was not the concept of relativity, it was the mathematics of what would later be called special relativity. The concept of relativity in this theory is mostly if not exclusively due to Einstein, who arrived at it from purely physical considerations. He did not need that mathematics.
As far as GRT and Gauss is concerned... What credit do you think deserves someone who even does not have guts to publish one's ideas. That's precisely what happened to Gauss who never published his idea that the space can be curved because he was afraid to be laughed at...Mach might have some impact on GRT, perhaps even negative. Einstein pursued Mach's ideas, but this turned out to be a blind alley: GRT does not realize the so called Mach principle that Einstein tried to incorporate in GRT. Poincare had nothing of substance to contribute to GRT at all, unlike to the mathematics of SRT. As far as Leibnitz is concerned- I can only guess that his ideas were very vague and certainly of no impact on Einstein.
So much about where the credit is really due...