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Talk:Theory of relativity (view source)
Revision as of 17:53, February 25, 2007
, 17:53, February 25, 2007<math>e=mc^2</math> not "attributed" to Einstein.
:It just goes to show the value of jargon. When scientists give something a simple name like "relativity," people assume they understand it and misapply it. I'm just thankful that people aren't very familiar with mathematics or we'd be hearding about crop circles in Galois fields. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:50, 25 February 2007 (EST)
:It just goes to show the value of jargon. When scientists give something a simple name like "relativity," people assume they understand it and misapply it. I'm just thankful that people aren't very familiar with mathematics or we'd be hearding about crop circles in Galois fields. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 12:50, 25 February 2007 (EST)
== <math>e=mc^2</math> not "attributed" to Einstein. ==
<math>e=mc^2</math> isn't just "attributed" to Einstein. When someone says "attributed", they typically mean that someone is given credit for an idea somewhat apocryphally. Einstein obtained the relation in his <i>Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper</i>, in which, from the Lorentz transformations, he obtained the relations:
<math>E = \sqrt{c^4m^2+p^2c^2}</math>
and then, as <math>p\to0</math>:
<math>E=mc^2</math>.
And these bizarre polemics are undermining what little credibility this encyclopedia has. Sneering at Einstein and glorifying the contributions of Ponicare makes all of the sense of arguing over whether Leibniz or Newton invented calculus, particularly since there are very palpable differences between Einstein and Ponicare's treatments of the subjects. And, I see someone has removed the "there is no evidence for the general theory", but I'm sure it will be back by this afternoon. That's ever weirder -- how on earth can someone say that "there is no evidence" and then, in the same article, link to black holes?
I'm not going to go back to that article on [[Dirac Notation]] to fill up all of those links with articles until I'm sure one of the administrators isn't going to replace them with accusations of quantum mechanics being tantamount to the Kabbalah, or something equally stupid.