Ask PG: What has changed since you wrote Hackers and Painters in 2004?

Re:Ask PG: What has changed since you wrote Hackers and Pain... by william42 on Sunday September 11, 2011 @12:48AM (#2983243)

You are severely overestimating Einstein and Gandhi. If you look at the history of general relativity* you notice that while Einstein was at the center he developed his theory with much help from others such as Hilbert and Levi-Civita. As for Gandhi, he himself was inspired by others such as the March 1st Movement in Korea; his greater fame could be perhaps linked more to the fact that India is huge. Not to take anything away from those two, except perhaps the world's almost deific portrayal of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_general_relativity

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_1st_Movement

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Re:Ask PG: What has changed since you wrote Hackers and Pain... by zohebv on Sunday September 11, 2011 @01:44AM (#2983308)

I do know about Hilbert, however Einstein and Hilbert were in heavy correspondence in the preceding few months and Hilbert never claimed primacy over Einstein. My conclusion, after seeing many accounts appears to be that Einstein would have arrived at the equations irrespective of Hilbert's inputs but not vice-versa. "Hilbert's treatise was exceedingly involved, or indeed confused—according to Felix Klein."

Also it should be noted that Satyagraha and Gandhi's civil resistance predates the March 1st movement.

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