Einstein was arrogant! Witness the fight with Alexander Friedmann.
Moorad
http://www.mathpages.com/rr/s7-01/7-01.htm
Interestingly, George Gamow was working with Friedmann in Russia in the early 1920's, and he later recalled that "Friedmann noticed that Einstein had made a mistake in his alleged proof that the universe must necessarily be stable". Specifically, Einstein had divided through an equation by a certain quantity, even though that quantity was zero under a certain set of conditions. As Gamow notes, "it is well known to students of high school algebra" that division by zero is not valid. Friedmann realized that this error invalidated Einstein's argument against the possibility of a dynamic universe, and indeed under the condition that the quantity in question vanishes, it is possible to satisfy the field equations with a dynamic model, i.e., with a model of the form given by the Robertson-Walker metric with R(t) variable. It's worth noting that Einstein's 1917 paper did not actually contain any alleged proof that the universe must be static, but it did suggest that a non-zero !
cosmological constant required a non-zero density of matter. Shortly after Einstein's paper appeared, de Sitter gave a counter-example (see Section 7.6), i.e., he described a model universe that had a non-zero l but zero matter density. However, unlike Einstein's model, it was not static. Einstein objected strenuously to de Sitter's model, because it showed that the field equations allowed inertia to exist in an empty universe, which Einstein viewed as "inertia relative to space", and he still harbored hopes that general relativity would fulfill Mach's idea that inertia should only be possible in relation to other masses. It was during the course of this debate that (presumably) Einstein advanced his "alleged proof" of the impossibility of dynamic models (with the errant division by zero?). However, before long Einstein withdrew his objection, realizing that his argument was flawed. Years later he recalled the sequence of events in a discussion with Gamow, and made th!
e famous remark that it had been the biggest blunder of his li!
fe. Thi
s is usually interpreted to mean that he regretted ever considering a cosmological term (which seems to have been the case), but it could also be referring to his erroneous argument against de Sitter's idea of a dynamic universe, and his unfortunate "division by zero".
________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu on behalf of George Cooper
Sent: Fri 6/13/2008 2:02 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: RE: [asa] Scientific Mysteries
Any idea why Einstein originally considered Lemaitre's GR work inferior? Einstein, apparently, stated: "Vos calculs sont corrects, mais votre physique est abominable" (Your math is correct, but your physics is abominable).
[per Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre]
[Sometimes it seems people underestimate the Georges of this world. *wink*]
"Coope"
From: George Murphy [mailto:GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com]
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 8:34 AM
To: Alexanian, Moorad; George Cooper; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Scientific Mysteries
I'm not sure of the temporal priorities but doubt that Hilbert would have been pursuing the appropriate line of thought if it hadn't been for Einstein's work.
Pauli's note on this in his well known book is interesting. "At the same time as Einstein, and independently, Hilbert, formulated the generally covariant field equations. ... His presentation, though, would not seem to be acceptable to physicists, for two reasons. First, the existence of a variational principle is assumed as an axiom. Secondly, of more importance, the field equations are not derived for an arbitrary system of matter, but are specifically based on Mie's theory of matter." Most theorists today I think would be a bit baffled by the 1st criticism.
BTW, this all helps to show the absurdity of the statement that "only six men in the world understand Einstein," not just today but at the time it was made ~1919. You can just go through the references in Pauli's book & find names of over a dozen people who had published on general relativity by then. (Someone once asked Eddington if it was true that only 3 people in the world undertood relativity & he said - jokingly - "Who is the third?")
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: Alexanian, Moorad <mailto:alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: George Murphy <mailto:GMURPHY10@neo.rr.com> ; George Cooper <mailto:georgecooper@sbcglobal.net> ; asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:42 AM
Subject: RE: [asa] Scientific Mysteries
What was the contribution of David Hilbert to general relativity? I read where Einstein was consulting Hilbert on what Hilbert was doing and, in fact, Hilbert published the equations of general relativity before Einstein did.
Moorad
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:26 AM
To: George Cooper; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Scientific Mysteries
"Gravitation is just the universe trying to straighten itself out" (E. Whittaker).
(Something of an inside joke. The gravitational Lagrangian in Einstein's theory to be used in the principle of stationary action [sometimes inaccurately called "least action"] is the curvature scalar of space-time.)
Shalom
George
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
----- Original Message -----
From: George Cooper <mailto:georgecooper@sbcglobal.net>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 10:53 AM
Subject: RE: [asa] Scientific Mysteries
Oh, I almost forgot...
Gravity, what is it?
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Received on Fri Jun 13 14:19:52 2008
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