One of the objectives of the Center for CANONICAL |SCIENCE) is to divulge modern historical views about the development of science.
In some occasions the history of science has been distorted because political, sociological, or even economical issues. In others, the discovering of new historical material as print proofs, correspondence, and unknown manuscripts –stored during decades in some old library or recovered from familiar archives– has changed the accepted historical view.
In general, the role of physics has been usually overemphasized in history of science, and this program tries to balance the contributions done by other disciplines. The information here below is merely meant as a balanced overview to the complex subject of the history of science. Information is based in a number of formal publications on the subject appeared during last few years, and it may disagree from older publications or from recent authors with different views.
The example of Sir Isaac Newton is especially important for the history of science. Considered the most important scientist of the history, Newton has been traditionally presented as a physicist and a mathematician to public.
However, in 1960 historians discovered a collection of 'hidden' manuscripts and data that, when properly studied, have revealed us a completely new image of the scientist. The current understanding of the history of science says us that the charming 18th century revolution in physics and mathematics was done by an alchemist (chemist): Sir Isaac Newton. But then how was history of science distorted?
First historians of physics already discovered the alchemical (chemical) side of Isaac Newton. This surprising discovering was not good news for them because chemistry was then considered an inferior discipline –still today you can find physicists considering chemistry an inferior science than physics–. First historians decided to ignore Newtonian manuscripts on chemistry and alchemy, and labeled them as not fit to be printed
. Early biographers as Thomas Pellet even recommended to the family to burn those manuscripts!
As a result only the mathematics and physics' manuscripts were highlighted to public, to other scientists, and to rest of historians. Fortunately for us, the family did not burn Newton original manuscripts, and were recovered on the last 60s for publication. Historians of science are still studying those manuscripts.
Modern historians have traced the origin of the physics of Newton on his previous alchemical studies. The idea of a Sun being attracted by Earth was unpleasant for 17th century physicists, but it was not for Newton. He had verified in his alchemical laboratory that two bodies attract one at each other. Newton even qualitatively verified in experiments that the presence of a third body modifies stability of other two. Using the alchemical principle that Nature is unified and the laws of the very small and the laws of the very big may be similar, Newton was able to apply with success his knowledge on chemical affinity (i.e. attraction) to celestial motion.
The detailed study of Newtonian chemical manuscripts has provided many surprising results. For instance, Eloy R. García noticed that the chemical experiments were very useful because they allow to Newton the experimentation with densities and amounts of matter, and next, they allowed to him the investigation of the motion of pendulums. These last investigations were very useful for determining gravitational magnitudes and the oscillations of Jupiter satellites, for example.
Today, historians estimate that Newton dedicated more than 30 intense years to alchemical (chemical) activities in his own laboratory. Yes, Isaac Newton the 'physicist', worked in his own chemical laboratory!
Historians also discovered that no more than two short years were devoted by Newton to mathematical or physical research. Data proves that physics was not the main interest of Isaac Newton. B. J. T. Dobbs agreed in The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy that interest of Newton in alchemy was guided by the alchemical promise of discovering the secret of existence.
It is today well documented that an intense period of chemical research took place in the 12 years immediately prior to the publication of the Principia. Historians state that the Principia were a logical outcome of his previous rigorous chemical investigation.
After publication of the Principia, Newton intensely returned to his main interest, revising the bibliography of more than 100 chemical authors on the previous 150 years; then he compiled the Index Chemicus, a voluminous 100-page manuscript with near 900 headings and notes.
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Isaac Newton, the alchemist, studying chemical attraction between substances before formulating the gravity theory (Illustration reproduced with permission by Patricia Iglesias Pérez). |
The discovering of the making of a fake Newtonian figure by earlier physicists and historians surprises us, but modern alterations of other figures are still more surprising. Take, for instance, the winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry 1977, the chemist Ilya Prigogine.
In several general literature –such as some encyclopedias, web pages, articles, books, etc.–, the chemist Ilya Prigogine is often presented as a physicist to the general public. For example, John Maddox –former editor of journal Nature during 22 years– described to Prigogine as a Belgian physicist
in his recent popular book What Remains to Be Discovered. However, Prigogine clearly stated in several places his chemical career. Prigogine wrote in his autobiography:
My father, Roman Prigogine, who died in 1974, was a chemical engineer from the Moscow Polytechnic. My brother Alexander, who was born four years before me, followed, as I did myself, the curriculum of chemistry at the Université Libre de Bruxelles.
But the rewritting of history of science can be still more bizarre. You can find both off and on-line resources saying you that Ilya Prigogine won the Nobel Prize for physics! A sample is the next: Prigogine began to study 'dissipative' or nonequilibrium structures frequently found in biological and chemical reactions. Nobel Prize for Physics 1977.
. Another sample with incorrect information about the Nobel Prize follows from an exhibit of the Center for American History with: [...] Ilya Prigogine receives the Nobel Prize for Physics [...]
In a 2001 Nature article, D. Adam explained how several outcomes of chemistry have been absorbed by physicists as being the outcome of physics. Adam explains in his article how recent advances provided by the chemical sciences –such as nanotechnology or medical IMR– are being publicized again as outcomes of physics or biophysics.
For general public the reply may be a sound yes
. It is popularly believed that Albert Einstein was the only originator of both the special and the general theory of relativity. The names of important authors as Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré, Marcel Grossmann, and David Hilbert remain unknown for the general public. Scientists recognize those authors –e.g. celebrating Grossmann's contributions to physics, Marcel Grossmann Meetings, since 1975– but still latest views on the history of relativity are not common.
Recent research and the discovering of new historical data –for instance a print proof of a crucial Hilbert paper on general relativity was discovered a few years ago on an old set of archives in a library– modifies traditional views about the development of the theories of relativity.
Special relativity was mainly an achievement from joining efforts of Henri Poincaré, Hendrik Lorentz, Albert Einstein, Joseph Larmor, George FitzGerald, and other authors. Historians have recollected a series of historical papers, talks, books, and other works proving the premise of a collective achievement.
Basic ideas of special relativity, including time-dilation, constancy of light speed on different inertial frames, the existence of a maximum velocity for the transmission of signals or the principle of relativity (laws of nature may be independent of the 'observer state'), were published in literature previous to Einstein's 1905 papers.
Olivier Darrigol also notices this when wrote in his 2004 article The Mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré Connection:
Poincaré's relevant publications antedated Einstein's relativity paper of 1905 by at least five years, and his suggestions were radically new when they first appeared.
There is also a controversy regarding priority issues on the formulation of general relativity. General relativity is mainly the outcome of the efforts of Einstein, Grossmann, and Hilbert. The fields equations of general relativity –often called Einstein field equations– would be renamed to Hilbert/Einstein equations.
Contrary to popular wisdom, Einstein was not the originator of main principles of relativity. In previously published –but largely ignored– works Poincaré wrote that absolute time does not exist or that 'inertial' observers have not, and cannot possibly have, any means of discerning whether we are, or are not, carried along in such a motion. Poincaré predicted that from all these revolutionary results there would arise an entirely new kind of dynamics
, which would be characterized above all by the rule, that no velocity can exceed the velocity of light.
When Einstein was proposed for the Nobel Prize for his work on relativity, members of the Nobel Committee objected that Poincaré was who had found basis for special relativity and it would be unfair not to associate him. Nevertheless, as Poincaré passed away at that time –he got a cancer in 1909 and died in 1912–, Einstein was finally awarded the Nobel prize for his work on the photoelectric effect. It is important to remark the diplomacy of the Nobel Committee. Now we understand why Einstein never received the Nobel Prize for the theory of relativity.
For example, the mass variation formula was obtained by Lorentz in 1904. Larmor first predicted time dilation before, in 1900. In the same year Poincaré considered that radiation verifies formula E = mc(\sup 2). A procedure for synchronizing of clocks via light signals is already available in another previous work by Poincaré. Hilbert obtained the gravitational trace term missing on Einstein early papers, etc.
We may agree here with Charles Nordmann:
All this was maintained by Poincaré and others long before the time of Einstein, and one does injustice to truth in ascribing the discovery to him.
The first strange detail one finds when studying the history of relativity is that Einstein's paper of 1905 was a unique piece because of the unusual of its style. Contrary to standard scientific practice, Einstein did not cite works on relativity from other authors.
That omission of references has perplexed many people during years. The impression that one receives when reading Einstein paper by the first time was excellently resumed by the Nobel prize for physics Max Born:
[Einstein's] paper "Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Koerper" in Annalen der Physik [...] contains not a single reference to previous literature. It gives you the impression of quite a new venture. But that is, of course, as I have tried to explain, not true.
When historians, physicists, and mathematicians began to find similarities between Einstein's 1905 paper and works previously published by other authors, Einstein was accused of plagiarism. Einstein defended by claiming no knowledge of previous work by others. At the end of his life, Einstein wrote in 1955 in a letter to Carl Seelig:
There is no doubt, that the special theory of relativity, if we regard its development in retrospect, was ripe for discovery in 1905. Lorentz has already observed that for the analysis of Maxwell's equations the transformations which later were known by his name are essential, and Poincaré had even penetrated deeper into these connections. Concerning myself, I knew only Lorentz' important work of 1895 La théorie électromagnétique de Maxwell and Versuch einer Theorie der elektrischen und optischen Erscheinungen in bewegten Körpern but not Lorentz later work, nor the consecutive work of Poincaré. In this sense my work of 1905 was independent.
It is now recognized that Einstein letter cannot be trusted. Take for instance the article Lost in Einstein's Shadow published in 2006 in Scientific American; Tony Rothman reports how we know from Einstein's friend Maurice Solovine that the two pounced on Poincaré's book La Science et l'hypothèse and, indeed, that the book kept them breathless for weeks on end
. In Poincaré's book, one can read revolutionary material traditionally attributed to Einstein:
There is no absolute space, and we can only conceive of relative motion.
There is no absolute time. When we say that two periods are equal, the statement has no meaning.
Not only have we no direct intuition of the equality of two periods, but we have not even direct intuition of the simultaneity of two events occurring in two different places.
In December 2001, the historian of science Stephen G. Brush stated in Physics Today that Poincaré provided inspiration for Einstein, who read Poincaré's Science and Hypothesis (La Science et l'hypothèse, French edition 1902, German translation 1904) and discussed it with his friends in Bern. Brush also adds a note on current research by historians: Einstein would also have read Poincaré's 1898 article on the measurement of time, in which the synchronization of clocks was discussed – a topic of professional interest to Einstein as a patent examiner.
. Future historical research will confirm or not this point.
We know now that Einstein defense letter of 1955 was untrue! Similar doubts arise on the development of the general theory of relativity. Correspondence archived proves that Einstein wrote to Hilbert –On 7 November 1915 (before Einstein Talks on Göttingen)– for soliciting assistance from David Hilbert, because the math involved in relativistic gravitation was too difficult for Einstein and even too difficult also for Einstein’s mathematician colleague: M. Grossmann.
After of some epistolary interchange Hilbert sent to Einstein a copy of a manuscript containing Hilbert derivation of the field equations of relativistic gravity.
On November 18 (1915), Albert Einstein replied:
Dear Colleague,
The system you furnish agrees —as far as I can see— exactly with what I found in the last few weeks and have presented to the Academy [...]
Which again cannot be trusted. The chronology of papers proves –as many recent historians have confirmed– that Einstein did not obtain the correct equations of gravitation in the last few weeks
. Einstein presented a paper to the Academia (Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin) the day 4 (Nov 1915) containing an incorrect version of the equations of general relativity (i.e. without the present trace term), and the day 11 submitted another paper containing again incorrect field equations.
It was only after of day 18 –when Hilbert sent him a manuscript on gravitational field equations– that Einstein corrected his equations and submitted to the Academia the paper of the day 25; paper already containing the field equations you can find now in textbooks.
Moreover, Ivan T. Todorov has remarked in his 2005 work Einstein and Hilbert: the creation of general relativity that Einstein proposed without derivation –emphasis on the original– the correct field equations in his paper of 25 November 1915.
Todorov adds about Einstein,
He chooses not to mention Hilbert's name in the published paper.
Once again Albert Einstein was spreading incorrect historical information about his own research achievements and omitting other authors on the subject. This oddity is characteristic of Einstein academic life but has remained unnoticed in most of popular presentations!
As reported by historian of science John Stachel (Director of the Center of Einstein Studies):
We do have a number of later historical remarks by Einstein himself, sometimes transmitted by others (Wertheimer, Reiser-Kayser, Shankland, Ishiwara, for example), which raise many problems of authenticity and accuracy; and some very late Einstein letters, answering questions such as whether he had prior knowledge of the Michelson-Morley experiment, what works by Lorentz he had read, the influence of Poincaré, Mach, Hume, etc., on his ideas; Einstein's replies are not always self-consistent, it must be noted.
In a 2006 invited talk titled Albert Einstein oder David Hilbert – wer entdeckte die Gravitationsgleichungen der Allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie?, at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft (German Physics Society) the historian of science Daniela Wuensch said that Hilbert may be credited by obtaining the field equations of general relativity first.
Another interesting point here is the polemic opened by Leo Corry, Jürgen Renn, and John Stachel with their article Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute published in Science in November 1997. The article was based in missed page proofs recently found on Göttingen archive. They stated in the polemic paper:
nowhere in the whole page proofs the correct equations can be found. Thus they revert the opinion held thus far by historians, by insinuating Hilbert has copied from Einstein, and not Einstein from Hilbert, because Hilbert had added the explicit equations (5c) with the correct trace term only after Dec 6, appearing in his published version at Mar 31, 1916 only. Hilbert has made other considerable changes for his published version without altering the initial date Nov 20 of submission or adding a date of revision.
A number of posterior works refuted Corry, Renn, and Stachel accusation as unfounded and revealed further doubts on the quality of the methodology by the three authors. For instance, historians who examined the printed proofs noticed that about one third of a page in Hilbert's page proofs had been cut-off. It is a shock that Corry, Renn, and Stachel did not notice the cut-off when they wrote nowhere in the whole page proofs the correct equations can be found
. The printed proofs would contain the field equations had been cut-off!
In the 2006 talk cited above, Daniela Wuensch expressed her views on the polemic mutilation of Hilbert's printer proofs. She claims the cut-off was made in more recent times in order to falsify the historical truth. Corry, Renn, and Stachel never clarified why they did not mention the cut-off in their polemic Science article. They recognized the existence of a cut-off in a posterior communication and then suggest that was made by Hilbert himself!
The polemic has continued with ad hominem attacks by Renn, Corry, and Stachel to Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg because his article On 'Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute', published by L. Corry, J. Renn, and J. Stachel. Winterberg article was published the year 2004 on Z. Naturforsch 59a, 715. The polemic reached a point where, as of September 2006, the Max Planck Institute of Berlin published a note saying that the society distances itself from statements published on this website by Prof. Jürgen Renn and two co-authors, Prof. Leo Corry and Prof. John Stachel, concerning Prof. Friedwardt Winterberg
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