Changes

Many ideas and quotes are falsely attributed to Einstein. He did not invent very much of we now call special relativity. The Principle of Relativity, that the law of physics should be the same in all inertial frames, had already been published before Einstein.<ref>[http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077]</ref> He did not discover the Lorentz transformation, or the Lorentz invariance of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism.<ref>[http://eprint.uq.edu.au/archive/00002307/]</ref> He was not the first to propose that the speed of light is constant for all observers, or that the aether is superfluous and not observable.<ref>Lost in Einstein's Shadow, American Scientist, 2006. [http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/49611/page/1]</ref> He was not the first to recognize and explain how special relativity causes an ambiguity in defining simultaneity.<ref>[http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/Poincare.htm]</ref> He did not combine space and time into a four-dimensional spacetime in his special relativity papers until others had been doing it for a couple of years.

Many ideas and quotes are falsely attributed to Einstein. He did not invent very much of we now call special relativity. The Principle of Relativity, that the law of physics should be the same in all inertial frames, had already been published before Einstein.<ref>[http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0408077]</ref> He did not discover the Lorentz transformation, or the Lorentz invariance of Maxwell's equations for electromagnetism.<ref>[http://eprint.uq.edu.au/archive/00002307/]</ref> He was not the first to propose that the speed of light is constant for all observers, or that the aether is superfluous and not observable.<ref>Lost in Einstein's Shadow, American Scientist, 2006. [http://www.americanscientist.org/template/AssetDetail/assetid/49611/page/1]</ref> He was not the first to recognize and explain how special relativity causes an ambiguity in defining simultaneity.<ref>[http://www.everythingimportant.org/relativity/Poincare.htm]</ref> He did not combine space and time into a four-dimensional spacetime in his special relativity papers until others had been doing it for a couple of years.

Einstein was not the first to observe the equation E=mc²<ref>H. Poincare published it in 1900. [http://www.serve.com/herrmann/ein.htm]</ref> as a consequence of special relativity, or to foresee its application to nuclear binding energies or [[antimatter]] annihilation. He did not foresee a nuclear chain reaction and had to be persuaded about the possibility of an atomic bomb.

Einstein was not the first to observe the equation E=mc²<ref>H. Poincare published it in 1900. [http://www.serve.com/herrmann/ein.htm]</ref> as a consequence of special relativity, or to foresee its application to nuclear binding energies or [[antimatter]] annihilation. He did not foresee a nuclear chain reaction and had to be persuaded about the possibility of an atomic bomb. However, while Poincare's version of E = mc2 was mathematically the same as Einstein's, Poincare couldn't explain this without referring to a fictitious fluid or an ether in order for the motion of the center of mass of energy to remain uniform.

Einstein did not originate the idea of using metric tensors to reconcile gravity with special relativity.<ref>[http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/DepPhilo/walter/papers/b4.pdf] It was not his idea to describe gravity in covariant equations, and he published papers supposedly showing that it was impossible.<ref>[http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades_re-set.pdf]</ref> He did not discover the Lagrangian formulation of general relativity, and was not the first to publish the field equations. He did not foresee the expansion of the universe (although this expansion is consistent with Einstein's equations), the possibility of black holes, or dark energy.

Einstein did not originate the idea of using metric tensors to reconcile gravity with special relativity.<ref>[http://www.univ-nancy2.fr/DepPhilo/walter/papers/b4.pdf] It was not his idea to describe gravity in covariant equations, and he published papers supposedly showing that it was impossible.<ref>[http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades_re-set.pdf]</ref> He did not discover the Lagrangian formulation of general relativity, and was not the first to publish the field equations. He did not foresee the expansion of the universe (although this expansion is consistent with Einstein's equations), the possibility of black holes, or dark energy.