Neither Poincare nor Lorentz are relevant to the genesis of General Relativity. The only relevant priority dispute is whether Einstein or Hilbert wrote down the correct field equations first. This was after a long correspondence between the two, in which Einstein explained his ideas -- there is no dispute that Einstein "invented" General Relativity. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_di...

> Neither Poincare nor Lorentz are relevant to the genesis of General Relativity

Well, that's just plain wrong. From the horse's mouth:

> As we know, this is connected with the relativity of the concepts of "simultaneity" and "shape of moving bodies." To fill this gap, I introduced the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light, which I borrowed from H. A. Lorentz's theory of the stationary luminiferous ether, and which, like the principle of relativity, contains a physical assumption that seemed to be justified only by the relevant experiments

More from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute

This quote is about special relativity.

Which is the source for General Relativity, which suffered too from an attribution dispute with Hilbert's works.

My point being: science doesn't happen in a vacuum, and is not totally ordered

>science doesn't happen in a vacuum

Yes, everybody agrees, but you specifically responded to the statement that Poincaré and Lorentz had nothing to do with GR. You said that statement was wrong, but it looks more like you confused SR and GR, which are two entirely different beasts.

Well the comment by pnin made it about GR, when the parent by boringuser2 was about the general contributions to relativity, both SR and GR. I believe "general theory of relativity" to be different than "general relativity" here, the former encompassing both SR and GR. Maybe that's where our misunderstanding comes from. Also, if you believe that GR has absolutely nothing to do with SR, then no Lorentz has no relevance to the genesis of General Relativity.

Anyway I don't believe we're having a discussion worth having here.

> there is no dispute that Einstein "invented" General Relativity.

Just like there is no dispute Newton invented calculus, gutenburg invented the printing press or columbus discovered the americas...

Plagiarized is too strong of a word. Poincaré too based his work on Lorentz's. And both with Einstein he sort of derived E = m c * 2, independently and earlier. But Einstein's publication was more complete.

Science is not totally ordered, the same invention can occur at two different places from the same shoulders of the same giant. Science is just partially ordered.

The problem is when the "ordering" of science is horizontal.

I.e. Einstein reading their works and copying their conclusions.

This is highly likely to have happened, regardless of the "completeness" of one work or another.

The thing I like about this is that it levels celebrity (something man-made) with rationality.

Why not reduce Einstein's celebrity? It reflects reality more accurately to do so.

The paper where Einstein introduces special relativity is really explicit about just providing a new way to think, not new mathematics. It starts out with explaining that there are two explanations for the same electrodynamical physics depending on the velocity of the system, and that's really weird.

Einstein's special-relativity fame comes from saying: no, actually, that is expected and they're really one explanation if you think like this rather than like that, even if the math works out the same as Lorentz's.

Because the author wanted to talk about Grossman? It's odd to criticize a piece for covering its chosen topic.

Right, it's not so much a critique of the author's work that I've presented as much as a meta-commentary on the article in the context that we're posting on a forum that aggregates content for public consumption.

The author is fine, he can publish whatever he pleases. I can't stop him, as you've pointed out.

From a meta-commentary perspective, it is actually quite interesting that Einstein's alleged plagiarism covers many diverse sources.

Thank you for the boring off-topic comments, boringuser2. Maybe boringuser1 was too interesting, so you were created. I promise to read the article if you do.

You are thinking of specific relativity. He didn't plagiarize the theory of specific relativity either because nobody had suggested it. Poincaré's idea of relativity relied on the existence of a Luminiferous aether which was disproved in the early 20th century.

*Special relativity

Who made these allegations of plagiarism? Do you have any references?

What exactly do you think Einstein plagiarized?

Relativity was ripe for discovery. And a lot of other scientists came very close:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute

But that's just how science work, and no ill will would have been employed by any participant; just as their fanclub want to pit them against one another.

Just like how Leibniz and Newton independantly formulated calculus, building on the work of others.

Thanks, nice link. I recall hearing or reading somewhere that Einstein leaned heavily on Caratheodory for the more difficult math, and I had a strong hunch that something like general relativity would have emerged within the next decade from when Einstein published his theory, if Einstein hadn't gotten there first. However, I didn't realize it was so close, so contentious, and so well documented.

Relevant username.

I don't think anything, im referring to allegations.

You’re referring without providing references.