Resolved: Henri Poincare Discovered Special Relativity, not Albert Einstein
Perspicacious
the distilled essence and facts about Henri Poincaré being the
originator and the first substantial contributor to special
relativity.
Why isn't the mathematician Henri Poincaré acknowledged as
the true discoverer of special relativity?
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077
Tom Davidson wrote:
> While there is little doubt that Poincaré made contributions
> to the theory, his expression of the Principle of Relativity
> [to wit, quoting from http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm :
> "In his book "La science et l'hypothèse" (1902), Poincaré
> devoted a full chapter to the relativity principle: "There
> is no absolute uniform motion, no physical experience can
> therefore detect any inertial motion (no force felt), there
> is no absolute time, saying that two events have the same
> duration is conventional, as well as saying they are
> simultaneous is purely conventional as they occur in
> different places".] has the same appalling lack of
> mathematical utility seen in crank posts elsewhere
> in this forum.
I suspect that Poincaré is conveying the postulate
that there is no cosmic everywhere present "now."
That's pure genius. It's the same brilliant idea
taken up in Eugene Shubert's very mathematical paper:
http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/special.pdf
> Einstein formulated the Principle of Relativity in terms
> that carried mathematical rigor, permitted experimental
> challenges, and led directly to *specific* consequences.
No. Poincaré did all that. Einstein stole Poincare's ideas.
> What matters is not so much *who* put it all together as
> the fact that, once assembled, the concepts of relativity
> theory accurately describe the observable universe.
No. The issue here is the importance of strict integrity,
and the intellectual dishonesty of the physics community
and their desire that everyone worship whomever they favor.
http://www.everythingimportant.org/viewtopic.php?t=1094
Originally posted by Xerxes314:
> Poincaré did not establish the axiom that the speed of
> light is constant for all inertial observers.
According to http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm ,
Poincaré derived the form of the Lorentz transformation
with the relativity postulate alone. That essentially
proves the constancy of light postulate.
Originally posted by Fernanda:
> I think the leap, and due credit to Einstein, is that
> he connected all of these and understood/realised for
> the first time the connection between mass, speed of
> light and energy.
That's just a fable created by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
and the news media.
"Formula E = mc^2 for radiation had been found for the first time
in the article by H. Poincaré in 1900 in clear and exact form."
See pages 112,120-121 of http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077
v...@cox.net wrote:
> What Bilge said is correct for Poincare, Lorentz, and Larmor.
> They waffled.
To a mathematician, physics is merely the mathematical study
of all conceivable universes. "A universe is a mathematical
model that describes spacetime, matter, energy and their
interactions." http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/
Poincaré wrote:
"This impossibility of revealing experimentally the
Earth's motion seems to represent a general law of
Nature; we naturally come to accept this law, which
we shall term the relativity postulate, and to accept
it without reservations. It is irrelevant, whether
this postulate, that till now is consistent with
experiments, will or will not later be confirmed
by more precise measurements, at present, at any
rate, it is interesting to see, what consequences
can be deduced from it."
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077 p. 26.
Physicists are deeply religious. Mathematicians are
dispassionate. Physicists today have every right to
require of themselves that originators of new physical
theories have religious faith that their constructed
mathematical models represent our actual universe.
For mathematicians, having religious faith is not
a criterion for discovery.
Poincaré never expressed a word or a thought that
his relativistic equations formed an inconsistent
mathematical model. Poincaré never repudiated even
one of the many relativistic equations he created.
Tom Davidson wrote:
>> "[Poincaré's] expression of the Principle of Relativity ...
>> has the same appalling lack of mathematical utility seen
>> in crank posts elsewhere in this forum."
>
Perspicacious wrote:
> Poincaré's derivation of the Lorentz transformation is sheer
> elegance. http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
> Einstein's derivation is a torturous insult and is extremely
> convoluted. (Annalen der Physik vol XVII 1905 p 891-921).
>
> Your statement about Poincaré's appalling lack of mathematical
> utility in his Principle of Relativity is outrageous, closed-
> minded ignorance. Poincaré dominated the mathematical high-
> ground of special relativity. http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077
It's reasonable to accept Henri Poincaré as the originator of
special relativity because he was the first to enunciate the
principle of relativity and the first to derive a large number
of relativistic equations.
Anatoly Alexeivich Logunov has proven the priority and the
superiority of Poincare's formulation of the special theory
of relativity over Einstein's later and less sophisticated
work. Poincaré pioneered the concept of synchronizing clocks
with light signals in his articles and lectures La Mesure du
Temps (1898), La Theorie de Lorentz at le Principe de Reaction
(1900) and The Principles of Mathematical Physics (1904).
Einstein copied this method without giving Poincaré credit
for the innovation. Poincaré stated the principle of
relativity in 1895, and in 1905 published an extremely
elegant derivation of the Lorentz transformation.
Poincare's approach to the Lorentz transformation is the
pattern followed today for all modern derivations of the LT.
It was Poincaré, not Einstein, who introduced four-dimensional
space-time into the theory of relativity. At first, Einstein
did not approve of the idea. Einstein learned the formula
E=mc^2 from Poincare's 1900 paper.
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
Here is the true reason for Einstein's popularity and fame:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/398700efdcfa3ccc
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/af718d896054763f
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.physics.research/msg/cf42bb5dcfbec038
http://www.nexusmagazine.com/articles/einstein.html
Robert Kolker
>
> No. Poincaré did all that. Einstein stole Poincare's ideas.
No more than he "stole" Maxwell's ideas.
Bob Kolker
Dirk Van de moortel
"Perspicacious" <iperspi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1123524116.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
[snip]
> That's pure genius. It's the same brilliant idea
> taken up in Eugene Shubert's very mathematical paper:
Perspicacious = Eugene Shubert = transparent troll.
Dirk Vdm
mark...@yahoo.com
> This collection of unanswered and unanswerable arguments reveals
> the distilled essence and facts about Henri Poincaré being the
> originator and the first substantial contributor to special
> relativity.
Too late. Poincare', as it well-known, himself gave the credit for the
discovery of Special Relativity to Einstein and pointed out that he too
(like Lorentz and others) had missed the essential insights behind the
theory before Einstein clearly formulated them.
> Why isn't the mathematician Henri Poincaré acknowledged as
> the true discoverer of special relativity?
Because Poincare' said he wasn't. And who are you (or anyone else) to
presume otherwise?
Sam Wormley
> This collection of unanswered and unanswerable arguments reveals
> the distilled essence and facts about Henri Poincaré being the
> originator and the first substantial contributor to special
> relativity.
>
Perspicacious = Eugene Shubert = crackpot.
Crackpot Shubert posting record
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group%3Asci.physics+author%3AInnocent
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=group%3Asci.physics+author%3APerspicacious
Dirk Van de moortel
<mark...@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1123527522.4...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
He is Eugene Shubert, a guy trained in mathematics, who does
not understand special relativity, and who therefore has decided
to troll the physics newsgroups. His mission is to lure unsuspecting
amateurs into getting to read his crap paper, so they can get even
more confused than he already is. This will probably make him
feel somehow better. Eugene Shubert is one of those typical
would-be terrorists :-)
Dirk Vdm
hamzaah...@yahoo.com
Logunov's paper? Disagree? I don't see the big deal-Poincare formulated
SR before Einstein,let's move on.
Bilge
>> This collection of unanswered and unanswerable arguments reveals
>> originator and the first substantial contributor to special
>> relativity.
>
>Too late. Poincare', as it well-known, himself gave the credit for the
>discovery of Special Relativity to Einstein and pointed out that he too
>(like Lorentz and others) had missed the essential insights behind the
>theory before Einstein clearly formulated them.
>
>> the true discoverer of special relativity?
>
>Because Poincare' said he wasn't. And who are you (or anyone else) to
>presume otherwise?
really said that) who loathes physicists, mainly because all of the
ones with whom he's spoken have told him he doesn't know what he's
talking about.
mme...@cars3.uchicago.edu
Mati Meron | "When you argue with a fool,
me...@cars.uchicago.edu | chances are he is doing just the same"
Harry
"Perspicacious" <iperspi...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1123524116.8...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
- Hey what did you mess up the thread symbols?! I'll manually add a minimal
amount to indicate who sais what...
SNIP old stuff
> It's reasonable to accept Henri Poincaré as the originator of
special relativity because he was the first to enunciate the
principle of relativity and the first to derive a large number
of relativistic equations.
> Anatoly Alexeivich Logunov has proven the priority and the
superiority of Poincare's formulation of the special theory
of relativity over Einstein's later and less sophisticated
work. Poincaré pioneered the concept of synchronizing clocks
with light signals in his articles and lectures La Mesure du
Temps (1898), La Theorie de Lorentz at le Principe de Reaction
(1900) and The Principles of Mathematical Physics (1904).
Einstein copied this method without giving Poincaré credit
for the innovation. Poincaré stated the principle of
relativity in 1895, and in 1905 published an extremely
elegant derivation of the Lorentz transformation.
I wonder if that is correct: I did not find his derivation in the 1905
papers!
> Poincare's approach to the Lorentz transformation is the
pattern followed today for all modern derivations of the LT.
It was Poincaré, not Einstein, who introduced four-dimensional
space-time into the theory of relativity.
That's also a bit imprecise: the author should have written that "it was
Poincaré, not Minkowski,"...
> At first, Einstein
did not approve of the idea. Einstein learned the formula
E=mc^2 from Poincare's 1900 paper.
That's also misleading: the equation as used by Poincare in 1900 was
apparently not intended to imply what Einstein concluded. Einstein took the
thought further to be the first to give that exact equation with the
mass-energy implication. For that he does deserve credit.
Harald
> http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
Perspicacious
> - Hey what did you mess up the thread symbols?!
I don't know what you mean. The page
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/d590f6a61dc6c76d
looks good on my computer.
> I wonder if that is correct: I did not find his derivation
> in the 1905 papers!
My source for Poincare's derivation is
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
> That's also a bit imprecise: the author should have written
> that "it was Poincaré, not Minkowski,"...
The point is that Einstein often gets credit for spacetime
and its 4-dimensions.
>> Einstein learned the formula
>> E=mc^2 from Poincare's 1900 paper.
> That's also misleading: the equation as used by Poincare
> in 1900 was apparently not intended to imply what Einstein
> concluded.
What did the equation E=mc^2 mean to Poincaré in 1900?
What was E to Poincaré? In the context of Poincare's paper,
what was meant by m?
Harry
Harald wrote:
> - Hey what did you mess up the thread symbols?!
I don't know what you mean. The page
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sci.math/msg/d590f6a61dc6c76d
looks good on my computer.
I mean this page as it was before last replying - and now again, see the
missing ">" above before "I don't know what you mean". I'll insert them
again manually...
> I wonder if that is correct: I did not find his derivation in the 1905
papers!
> My source for Poincare's derivation is
http://www-cosmosaf.iap.fr/Poincare-RR3A.htm
Yes I have read that one too. I suspect that it's wrong on that point,
likely it's in the 1906 paper - to be checked.
> That's also a bit imprecise: the author should have written
> that "it was Poincaré, not Minkowski,"...
> The point is that Einstein often gets credit for spacetime and its
4-dimensions.
I wonder why - doesn't everyone know that Einstein got that from Minkowski?
>> Einstein learned the formula E=mc^2 from Poincare's 1900 paper.
> That's also misleading: the equation as used by Poincare
> in 1900 was apparently not intended to imply what Einstein
> concluded.
> What did the equation E=mc^2 mean to Poincaré in 1900?
What was E to Poincaré? In the context of Poincare's paper,
what was meant by m?
We should look that up again, but he did not even use that equation: if I
remember well, he calculated the expected momentum exchange between a light
ray and a particle.
Cheers,
Harald
Perspicacious
> I suspect that it's wrong on that point, likely it's in
> the 1906 paper - to be checked.
Thanks. I appreciate that.
>> What did the equation E=mc^2 mean to Poincaré in 1900?
>
> We should look that up again, but he did not even use that
> equation
Please compare what you find with this statement on page 112
of http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077 :
"From the equations of Poincaré's relativistic mechanics we
have on the basis of (9.17), for a body in a state of rest
E0 = mc^2 , where E0 is the energy, m is the mass of the
body at rest."
hamzaah...@yahoo.com
"Sur la dynamique de l'electron", Comptus Rendus de Academie de
Science, vol. 140, pp. 1504-1506, 1905
Harry
Thanks. I appreciate that.
Correct: *From* the equations.
Harald
Perspicacious
::: We should look that up again, but he did not even use that
::: equation
:: Please compare what you find with this statement on page 112
:: of http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077 :
:: "From the equations of Poincaré's relativistic mechanics we
:: have on the basis of (9.17), for a body in a state of rest
:: E0 = mc^2 , where E0 is the energy, m is the mass of the
:: body at rest."
: Correct: *From* the equations.
Harald,
Let me get this straight. You read French. And you've
confirmed that Poincaré's relativistic mechanics has
an equation like E=c.sqrt(p^2 + m^2c^2) that Poincaré
published before Einstein's paper on E=mc^2? And it
takes a genius in physics to interpret Poincaré's
equation and notice that if momentum p is zero,
then E=mc^2?
Harry
:::: What did the equation E=mc^2 mean to Poincaré in 1900?
::: We should look that up again, but he did not even use that
::: equation
:: Please compare what you find with this statement on page 112
:: of http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077 :
:: "From the equations of Poincaré's relativistic mechanics we
:: have on the basis of (9.17), for a body in a state of rest
:: E0 = mc^2 , where E0 is the energy, m is the mass of the
:: body at rest."
: Correct: *From* the equations.
> Harald,
Let me get this straight. You read French. And you've
confirmed that Poincaré's relativistic mechanics has
an equation like E=c.sqrt(p^2 + m^2c^2) that Poincaré
published before Einstein's paper on E=mc^2?
Not exactly: eq.9.17 is, I think, not cited from Poincare, but I don't have
Poincare's paper at hand now (which one? I forgot). I reply from memory and
what in your ref. is written. I now see that the discussion of that point is
more around p.120, but I somehow miss seeing a direct citation of a crucial
part of Poincare's paper, with such a straightforward and transparent
equation as you think.
BTW, his conclusion about Einstein's paper and Ives criticism is wrong, IMO
all published comments on that one are wrong! I conclude (not yet published)
that Einstein's derivation did have a glitch but without consequences for
the final result.
> And it
takes a genius in physics to interpret Poincaré's
equation and notice that if momentum p is zero,
then E=mc^2?
I won't say that it takes a genius to combine Poincare's calculations with
either SRT or previous attempts to find the mass-energy connection. But it
was a notable progress in insight; even the way Einstein formulated his
conclusion seems more correct to me than the way most modern textbooks
formulate it.
Harald
Perspicacious
You asked for specific references. When you have the time
please summarize the content of the paper mentioned by
hamzaahmedyusuf:
"Sur la dynamique de l'electron", Comptus Rendus de
Academie de Science, vol. 140, pp. 1504-1506, 1905
I'm very interested in a precise appraisal of Poincaré's
paper on the Lorentz group. Please review that.
fellow
> This collection of unanswered and unanswerable arguments reveals
> the distilled essence and facts about Henri Poincaré being the
> originator and the first substantial contributor to special
> relativity.
Too late. Poincare', as it well-known, himself gave the credit for the
discovery of Special Relativity to Einstein and pointed out that he too
(like Lorentz and others) had missed the essential insights behind the
theory before Einstein clearly formulated them.
Are you sure about this? I was under the impression that Poincare
wasn't impressed with Einstein's work on SR and in fact it graed with
him that he received credit for SR.
> Why isn't the mathematician Henri Poincaré acknowledged as
> the true discoverer of special relativity?
Because Poincare' said he wasn't. And who are you (or anyone else) to
presume otherwise?
OK. Have you got a reference to where he says this?
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
08/08/2005
at 12:03 PM, mark...@yahoo.com said:
>Too late. Poincare', as it well-known, himself gave the credit for
>the discovery of Special Relativity to Einstein and pointed out that
>he too (like Lorentz and others) had missed the essential insights
>behind the theory before Einstein clearly formulated them.
When did he finally agree with Einstein's approach?
--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz, SysProg and JOAT <http://patriot.net/~shmuel>
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Harry
Harald,
---------------------------------------------------------
- Again no indent marks, what did you mess up to your settings?! -
Eugene, that one I know - it's sufficiently short and essential to read.
But it was just a three page note, pointing to his paper that was published
in 1906 and which I have not studied yet. He simply emphasized the complete
symmetry of the transforms that he first wrote down as such by remarking
that they "form a group". His point was that by Lorentz (although with a
slight correction by him) a theory was accomplished that obeys the PoR.
He went on to propose that gravitation also propagates with light speed.
Best regards,
Harald