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What Einstein Learned from the Mathematicians (and not just Marcel Grossmann)

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Shubee

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Apr 26, 2008, 9:45:08 PM4/26/08
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Standard accounts of Einstein's early work on general relativity
theory have stressed the role of a single mathematician, Marcel
Grossmann. It was he who came to Einstein's rescue when it became
clear around 1912 that generalizing special relativity in order to
accommodate gravitation brought with it a number of delicate
geometrical problems. Grossmann provided the hint to generalize the
Minkowski metric, and also the necessary technical machinery, namely
Riemannian geometry and the tensor calculus of Ricci and Levi-Civita.

Indeed, the recently published Einstein correspondence from the period
1914 to 1918 makes abundantly clear the importance of Einstein's
contacts with Tullio Levi-Civita, Hermann Weyl, Felix Klein, Emmy
Noether, and a number of other mathematicians.

Many of these mathematicians that Einstein sought for help with his
theory thought that Einstein was an incredible dullard when it came to
mathematics. David Hilbert said, “Every boy in the streets of
Gottingen understands more about four–dimensional geometry than
Einstein.” Minkowski (Einstein’s math professor) thought that
Einstein’s mathematical abilities were appalling. Einstein himself is
on record whining about the difficulty he had in understanding
Minkowski’s famous Cologne lecture of 1908 on the unification of space
and time.

Shubee
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf

YBM

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Apr 26, 2008, 9:56:33 PM4/26/08
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Shubee a écrit :
> [usual stupid rant]

You, in comparaison, have never learnt anything from neither
mathematicians (you have huge problems with algebra) nor physicist
(you've never understood what a synchronization procedure is).


Dono

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Apr 26, 2008, 11:20:45 PM4/26/08
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On Apr 26, 6:45 pm, Shubee <e.Shu...@gmail.com> wrote:


back to slurring Einstein, ShitBert?

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