Whether Einstein Was a Plagiarist or Not

Whether Einstein Was a Plagiarist or Not

Proponents of Einstein have acted in a way that appears to corrupt the historical record. Albert Einstein (1879-1955), Time Magazine's "Person of the Century", wrote a long treatise on special relativity theory (it was actually called "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", 1905a), without listing any references. Many of the key ideas it presented were known to Lorentz (for example, the Lorentz transformation) and Poincaré before Einstein wrote the famous 1905 paper.

As was typical of Einstein, he did not discover theories; he merely commandeered them. He took an existing body of knowledge, picked and chose the ideas he liked, then wove them into a tale about his contribution to special relativity. This was done with the full knowledge and consent of many of his peers, such as the editors at Annalen der Physik.

The most recognisable equation of all time is E = mc2. It is attributed by convention to be the sole province of Albert Einstein (1905). However, the conversion of matter into energy and energy into matter was known to Sir Isaac Newton ("Gross bodies and light are convertible into one another...", 1704). The equation can be attributed to S. Tolver Preston (1875), to Jules Henri Poincaré (1900; according to Brown, 1967) and to Olinto De Pretto (1904) before Einstein. Since Einstein never correctly derived E = mc2 (Ives, 1952), there appears nothing to connect the equation with anything original by Einstein.

Arthur Eddington's selective presentation of data from the 1919 Eclipse so that it supposedly supported "Einstein's" general relativity theory is surely one of the biggest scientific hoaxes of the 20th century. His lavish support of Einstein corrupted the course of history. Eddington was less interested in testing a theory than he was in crowning Einstein the king of science.

The physics community, unwittingly perhaps, has engaged in a kind of fraud and silent conspiracy; this is the byproduct of simply being bystanders as the hyperinflation of Einstein's record and reputation took place. This silence benefited anyone supporting Einstein.

Introduction

Science, by its very nature, is insular. In general, chemists read and write about chemistry, biologists read and write about biology, and physicists read and write about physics. But they may all be competing for the same research dollar (in its broadest sense). Thus, if scientists wanted more money for themselves, they might decide to compete unfairly. The way they can do this is convince the funding agencies that they are more important than any other branch of science.