I’ve been having a debate with someone who calls Einstein a plagiarist and says he had no original ideas at all, just pinching them off others and passing them off as his own.
A typical comment goes like this:
I feel that he’s wrong, but I’m no scientist and can’t argue well against the stuff he comes out with.
He has challenged me to “name one of his good original ideas” that wasn’t swiped from someone else.
Can anyone help?
einstein’s big 3 were special relativity, general relativity, and photoelectric effect. i guess to a degree, none of einstein’s ideas bursted from a vacuum. there were always premonitions, theories, and unexplained observations somewhere. however it’s no small feat to “force a derivation”. i’m not really sure what your friend’s getting at with his argument. does he mean to say that nobody in the history of mankind has ever had a unique thought?
I’ve never heard him accused of plagiarism. I think it’s well established that other people were working on the same things Einstein was at the same time, and that he and they often reached the same conclusions. That’s not unusual in science since there are always multiple people working on any problem, and it’s not unusual in the world at large. Building on someone else’s work doesn’t make Einstein a plagiarist. I’ve never heard of him taking credit for work done by someone else.
A Princeton student once sought out Einstein and beseeched him to listen to a new theory he had. He was sure only a man of Einstein’s intellect and profound contributions to science could tell him if it was a good idea. Einstein replied, “I don’t think I’m qualified to answer, I’ve only had a couple of good ideas myself.”
The concept of Galilean relativity (also known as Galilean invariance or occasionally Newtonian relativity) was already well established, and fundamentally stated that physical mechanics in all inertial (non-accelerated) reference frames in indistinguishable, regardless of the speed they are moving with respect to some other fixed frame. Einstein’s particular genius was to recognize that the is no privileged or fixed frames; all non-inertial frames are in constant relative motion to each other, and the behavior an observer in one frame sees in another is mirrored by that seen by an observer in the second frame looking at the first. The principle of a maximum speed at which mass and energy can travel falls out from this as a consequence. Einstein wasn’t the first to cotton onto this particular relationship; in particularly, Henri Poincaré developed a theory that was essentially identical to special relativity in many of its particulars (especially the E=m*c[sup]2[/sup] mass-energy relationship that has become characterized as “Einstein’s Equation” in the public mind) but did not publish his full theory until after Einstein published his third and fourth Annus Mirabilis papers in 1905, “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”, his introductory work on SR, and “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?” Heinrick Lorentz had already developed the algebraic transformations that bear his name which both Einstein and Poincaré used in developing the spacetime relationships.
Poincaré continued to attempt to justify a version of a static aether frame, whereas Einstein dismissed the need for a medium and allowed for electromagnetic radiation to be self-propagating, though one can argue that this is nothing more than semantics, and that SR simply ignores the properties of the underlying plenum (something that can’t be done with general relativity). Hermann Minkowski, whose eponymous space describes a four dimensional manifold (three space and one time dimension) that distinguishes it from Euclidian space, developed his tool as an attempt to generalize Einstein’s (and Poincaré’s) theories, but did not precede them. It is true that Einstein’s papers don’t reference anything else (and while it is doubtful he knew about the work of Poincaré, he did directly draw from Lorentz) but the standard for citation on older papers is significantly more lax than it is today.
There are some specious arguments that Einstein’s first wife, Mileva Marić, who was also a student in physics and mathematics at Zurich Polytechnic, may have significantly contributed to Einstein’s famous papers, but aside from the fact that he turned his Nobel prize money over to her in exchange for a quitclaim (with which she bought an apartment building and failed to do anything remarkable in the fields of physics or mathematics) there is no evidence that her contributions extended beyond nerdy pillow talk.
As far as general relativity, it is certainly true that Einstein was not sufficiently skilled in the then fairly obscure and nascent area of differential geometry to have developed the theory on his own. In particular, mathematician Tullio Levi-Civita directly encouraged Einstein to work on incorporating gravity into relativity via the principle of general covariance, and while it isn’t clear how much interaction mathematician-turned-physicist David Hilbert had with Einstein (whose work inspired Hilbert to study physics), while Hilbert published his version of what became known as the Einstein Field Equations first, he fully credited Einstein with having developed the underlying theory. Most of the specific solutions to the EFE (which is non-linear and very, very difficult to solve except in topologically trivial conditions) have been solved by people other than Einstein, and in fact, most realistic applications can’t be solved in closed form or with the primitive numerical simulation tools available during Einstein’s lifetime.
The photoelectric effect is something of a grab bag, as many of the people who worked on the underlying theory didn’t even want to accept the consequences, leading, as they did, to quantized and dualistic behavior of fundamental particles. Study of what became known as the photoelectric effect (and underlying quantum mechanics) go back at least to Max Planck, whose blackbody radiation model, based upon the statistical mechanics developed by predecessors like Ludwig Boltzmann, James Maxwell Clerk, and J.J. Thompson, gave rise to the stochastic behavior of fundamental particles (though Planck never accepted this as being anything other than an approximation). Einstein certainly won the Nobel prize for his theory (largely because relativity was still too controversial for the Nobel Committee to award on that basis) but his work was, as nearly all theoretical science is, based upon the work of many notables before him. Einstein also did a fair amount of work with statistical mechanics; none of it was strictly revolutionary, but it did lead to the identification of novel states of matter.
Einstein’s fundamentally original ideas are that there is no privileged reference frames, that gravity is an artifact of the underlying curvature of spacetime, that matter is a bound form of energy, and that energy is quantized (comes in discrete packets). These may not have been totally unique to him, but he was the first to put them together into coherent, workable theories that were exercised by others. Does Einstein enjoy a stature in popular culture that is disproportionate in comparison to his contributions? Perhaps; certainly there are many other notable physicists who have made substantial, paradigm-altering contributions but who couldn’t be identified in a lineup by 99% of the population; that isn’t because Einstein unfairly capitalized upon these discoveries as being all his, but because he made such a memorable, idiosyncratic figure, not only in science but in international relations. (A quick perusal of famous quotations by Al finds more in regard to world peace than physics.)
As for the response cited by the o.p., I’ll just say that no figure is so great that someone won’t try to tear him or her down, and while there is reason to protest that there are many other physicists who have contributed to the overall body of knowledge that we currently enjoy in equal measure, arguing that Einstein was a “career plagiarist” is disingenuous and argumentative. He built his theories on the works and mathematical tools of others, and his successors did the same using his work. That’s the way of science.
Stranger
As Newton once said, “If I have seen further than others, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants”. Einstein was certainly building off of the work of others: Off the top of my head, Special Relativity built off of the work of Maxwell and Lorentz, among others, the photoelectric effect built off of Planck’s work, and so on. But he ended up making those last critical steps, and they didn’t. Now, if Einstein had never existed, probably those folks or someone else (Minkowski, maybe, for SR) would have come up with those ideas instead, and probably not all that much later. But they didn’t.
A couple of other points, here: One, unlike any of those others, Einstein made significant contributions to many different topics. Even if Minkowski had come up with special relativity, he probably would not have also come up with the explanations for the photoelectric effect or Brownian motion, for instance. And two, while credit should be shared for SR, the photoelectric effect, and Brownian motion, I’ve never seen any indication that anyone else was anywhere near coming up with General Relativity. Oh, Riemann and the mathematicians who followed him could have told you the geodesic equation and described the relationship between the metric and curvature, but I don’t think that it occurred to anyone but Einstein that curvature might be generated by mass (and precisely what the relationship is between the two), and that this could explain gravity.
Actually, let me amend that a bit:
I should give credit that Maxwell also made significant contributions to many different topics. He was nearly as great a physicist as Einstein was, and doesn’t get as much recognition as he deserves. It was just his bad luck that a mere half-century after his time, he got eclipsed by one of the two or three physicists in history who was even greater than he.
He still wouldn’t have ended up developing special relativity, though, since he died in 1879.
Hilbert published the field equations more or less the same week Einstein did.
Is it possible that your friend has Einstein and Edison mixed up in his head?
Still though Hilbert fully credited Einstein.
I was thinking the exact same thing.
Modesty was not a strong suit for Newton. If I remember correctly, this seemingly humble quote was made in a letter to Robert Hooke, with whom he was having a priority dispute. Apparently, it was intended as a put-down. Robert Hooke was a very short man.
If I had to rate the greatest physicists of all time, I would put Newton first, followed by Einstein, Galileo, and Maxwell. I would be hard-pressed to decide the order for the last three.
On second thought, I googled that bit about Robert Hooke and found this on Wikipedia:
Isaac Newton famously remarked in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke dated February 5, 1676 that:
“What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”
This has recently been interpreted by a few writers as a sarcastic remark directed against Hooke. This is speculative; Hooke and Newton had exchanged many letters in tones of mutual regard, and Hooke was not of particularly short stature, although he was of slight build and had been afflicted from his youth with a severe stoop. However, at some point, when Robert Hooke criticized some of Newton’s ideas regarding optics, Newton was so offended that he withdrew from public debate. The two men remained enemies until Hooke’s death.
If your friend says that the claim that Einstein was a plagiarist is well documented, let him document it. Tell him to give you a list of the discoveries that Einstein is generally supposed to have made and let him demonstrate for each of those discoveries that someone else was responsible. Insist on details and citations for each of his claims. The general rule on the SDMB is that you’re not obligated to disprove oddball claims made by other people. It’s their job to prove their own claims.
I suspect that your friend will refuse to do any such thing. He’ll act hurt and ask you how you could dare to question the statements of a friend. At that point, you’ll realize why it’s not worth your while to listen to any of his arguments. If he should actually send you a detailed list of who he claims actually discovered these things, then come back to us with that list and let us try to show why he’s wrong.
Regardless of whether Newton sincerely meant the quote about shoulders of giants humbly, the humble interpretation of it is still true.
On the other hand, I don’t think there’s any doubt that Gell-Mann’s version of the quote showed a definite lack of humility.
If you look at it that way, then no one comes up with anything original ever. Every invention relies on previous inventions, every idea relies on previous ideas.
Even if one could make the case that his papers on special relativity were copied, it’s irrelevant to the question of Einstein’s fame. What made Einstein a household name synonymous with “genius” was general relativity, which pretty much did come out of nowhere. The required math was being developed at the time, but the underlying idea was answering questions no one had yet thought to ask. When he published the theory, scientists struggled to come up with a way to test it, as it was so ahead of its time. It’s one of the rare cases in physics where the theory preceded any experiments requiring explanation.
I’ll probably write nothing here that hasn’t been said upthread, but these accusations against Einstein are a major peeve of mine. The accusations are so inexplicable, one suspects that anti-Semitism lies at their root.
The General Theory of Relativity has been called the “most creative and original scientific theory ever.” In addition to profound intuition about space, Einstein developed new mathematical notation to express the theory. Before he’d finalized this, he gave a blackboard talk which David Hilbert attended. Hilbert and Einstein then produced the appropriate equations at about the same time. Given that Hilbert may then have been the greatest living mathematician, this hardly seems to impugn Einstein.
As others mentioned, Special Relativity and the Discovery of the Photon are two other big Einstein ideas, but he had more. Believe it or not, until Einstein’s 1905 paper on Brownian motion, some physicists still thought atomic theory was just a model, and that atoms weren’t real! And, as I understand it, Einstein’s EPR thought experiment was what first made physicists fully aware of quantum entanglement’s “spooky” nature.
That others may have anticipated parts of his theories does not detract from Einstein’s greatness. One sees the same thing with other mathematics and physics “greats.” Huygens postulated inverse-square gravitation before Newton did; Oresme and Cardan essentially described the Law of Falling Bodies before Galileo did; every essential principle of Darwin’s theory had been published before Darwin and Wallace wrote; etc. etc.
The bizarre anti-Einstein blogs are really baffling. Is there any chance your friend is anti-Semitic?
No, he’s confused Einstein and Bernstein. West Side Story was really just Romeo and Juliet.
I’ve heard about Einstein being a plagerist but it sounded to me more like Einstein was poor at providing references/credit than a malicious “I’ll steal this idea and pass it off as my own.” It was more of, “Let’s take all of these results. Assuming . . .” and so Einstein’s real contribution what the assumptions that brought all of the results together.
Quoth Yumblie:
A bit of an overstatement: There was the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury. Probably, if it weren’t for the fact that GR explained that, nobody would have bothered with the eclipse expeditions (the first of which, incidentally, actually had inconclusive results consistent with either GR or Newtonian gravity).
Quoth septimus:
Not quite so sinister, I think. I think it’s more that people always hear about Einstein being the smartest person ever, and like to think of themselves as actually being smarter than this great man. It’s the same root cause as, say, the New York Times calling Goddard ignorant of the basic principles of science ladled out daily in high schools.