by Ian Mosley
Albert Einstein is today revered as “the Father of Modern Science”. His wrinkled face and wild hair has become a symbol for scientific genius and “his” famous E = mc^2 equation is repeatedly used as the symbol for something scientific and intellectual. And yet there has for years been mounting evidence that this “Father of Modern Science” was nothing but a con man, lying about his ideas and achievements, and stealing the work and the research of others.
The most glaring evidence against Einstein concerns “his” most famous equation. One website notes “The equation E=mc^2, which has been forever linked to Einstein & his Theory of Relativity was not originally published by Einstein. According to Umberto Bartocci, a professor at the University of Perugia and a historian of mathematics, this famous equation was first published by Olinto De Pretto …two years prior to Einstein’s
publishing of the equation. In 1903 De Pretto published his equation in the scientific magazine Atte and in 1904 it was republished by the Royal Science Institute of Veneto. Einstein’s research was not published until 1905… Einstein was well versed in Italian and even lived in Northern Italy for a brief time.”
It is unheard of to pass over the original inventor of an equation and to give credit to someone, who claims to have derived it AFTER the equation and its derivation have been published. The equation “E=mc^2″ should be called the “De Pretto Equation” not the “Einstein Equation.”
This raises the question: “What sort of man was Einstein?” Is there evidence that he may have been prone to unethical behavior? One website reports “Einstein… 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… 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 paralleled 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.”
One source notes “David Hilbert submitted an article containing the correct field equations for general relativity five days before Einstein.” Another source notes “Einstein presented his paper on November 25, 1915 in Berlin and Hilbert had presented his paper on November 20 in Göttingen. On November 18, Hilbert received a letter from Einstein thanking him for sending him a draft of the treatise Hilbert was to deliver on the 20th. So, in fact, Hilbert had sent a copy of his work at least two weeks in advance to Einstein before either of the two men delivered their lectures, but Einstein did not send Hilbert an advance copy of his.” Apparently Hilbert’s work was soon to become “Einstein’s work.”
The historic record is readily available and the truth is known to many scientists and historians, even if they are afraid to say anything. The idea that light had a finite speed was proven by Michelson and Morley decades before Einstein. Hendrik Lorentz determined the equations showing relativistic time and length contractions which become significant as the speed of light is approached. These gentlemen along with David Hilbert and Olinto De Pretto have been airbrushed out of the picture so that Einstein could be given the credit for what they had done.
Einstein appeared to latch onto his first wife, a much more talented student three years his senior, to compensate for his own limited abilities. Another website notes: “…in 1927, H. Thirring wrote, ‘H. Poincare had already completely solved the problem of time several years before the appearance of Einstein’s first work (1905). . . .’ Sir Edmund Whittaker in his detailed survey, A History of the Theories of Aether and Electricity,
Volume II, (1953), included a chapter entitled ‘The Relativity Theory of Poincare and Lorentz’. Whittaker thoroughly documented the development of the theory, documenting the authentic history, and demonstrated through reference to primary sources that Einstein held no priority for the vast majority of the theory. Einstein offered no counter-argument to Whittaker’s famous book. . .”
Einstein was a minor contributor at best and in any case an intellectual thief and pretentious braggart. Einstein was still alive when Whitaker’s book was published and he said NOTHING about it. No libel suit, no refutation, no public comment at all.
Einstein was the first great fraudster and idea-thief in modern science. His theft of Olinto De Pretto’s equation E = mc^2 gave him considerable scientific credibility which he built a career on. De Pretto was not a career physicist and spent his life as an industrialist, passing away in 1921. De Pretto had published his equation twice before Einstein and was no doubt amazed that someone could claim credit for his work. Einstein used and eventually discarded his first wife, Mileva, who was a much more brilliant student than Einstein and is suspected of writing much of Einstein’s early work. (She may have been reluctant to expose Einstein since he was still the father of her children.) David Hilbert’s work on the equations for Special Relativity was submitted for publication before
Einstein and was sent to Einstein as correspondence. Einstein claimed credit for the equations which Hilbert derived. (David Hilbert passed away in 1943.)
Some university professors have stolen work from their graduate students and it would be interesting to see if any of Einstein’s students complained of such thievery. A plagiarist seldom stops plagiarizing especially when he keeps getting away with it. Complaints against Einstein however seem to disappear down the Orwellian memory hole. Einstein is clearly a sacred cow to many. A few have even used the word “heresy” to describe serious well-documented criticism and charges of plagiarism against Einstein. The truth eventually wins out and Einstein will someday be best known as a great fraud instead of a great physicist.
