Credit for relativity theory

The letter by Vladimir Krasnopolsky in the July 2007 issue of Physics Today (page 8 ) touches on a topic long ago settled by the experts and the broad consensus of physicists.

It is, of course, a fact that all theories have precursors. That is true of the special theory of relativity. But it does not alter the fact that this theory in its essential fundamentals is due entirely to Albert Einstein. As my teacher, Wolfgang Pauli, emphasized in his celebrated 1958 review,

Einstein’s paper of 1905 was submitted at almost the same time as [Henri] Poincaré’s article and had been written without previous knowledge of [Hendrick] Lorentz’s paper of 1904. It includes not only all the essential results contained in the other two papers, but shows an entirely novel, and much more profound understanding of the whole problem. ¹

That judgment is the solid basis for Einstein’s authorship of the special theory of relativity. According to Max Born, “Lorentz … probably never became a relativist at all, and only paid lip service to Einstein at times, to avoid arguments.” ²

The issue was thoroughly examined again 75 years later in Abraham Pais’s authoritative biography of Einstein ³ and was settled in Einstein’s favor. It is amusing to recall that Pais examined and dismissed the claims made by Edmund Whittaker, who referred to “the relativity theory of Poincaré and Lorentz.”

Einstein’s reaction to Whittaker’s writing was instructive. He wrote, “I do not have to read the thing…. If he manages to convince others, that is their own affair.”