On 4 March 2007 in response to the question >> Is anyone on this list going to make a paradigm shift in their >> professional endeavors based on one study?
Peter Harzam wrote >Why not? Physics did on the basis of one study (Einstein's three >brief theoretical papers in one year). To which Chris Green replied: >Actually not. Almost no one took Einstein's theory of relativity >seriously until after Eddington published the solar eclipse study of 1920. Peters reference to three theoretical papers in one year indicates he is alluding to 1905, and therefore the relativity paper in question is that on special relativity. Einsteins special relativity paper was published in late September 1905, and Max Planck later reported that it "immediately aroused my lively attention." (Max von Laue wrote that when he came to Berlin as Planck's assistant in the autumn of 1905 the first lecture he heard was one by Planck on the newly published paper.) Numerous physicists of varying degrees of eminence had become interested in the theory by 1907, and some actually came to Bern to discuss it with Einstein. So some physicists certainly took the special theory seriously from the start. (More generally, in May 2006 Einstein wrote to a friend, "My [1905] papers are meeting with much acknowledgement and are giving rise to further investigations.") Chris's comment is, of course, in relation to general relativity, more or less finalised by 1915. It is not quite the case that almost no one took the theory seriously, more that most physicists were bemused by it (and unable to deal with the rather esoteric mathematics involved, for which Einstein himself had had to seek the help of a mathematician friend in 1912). But Einstein had a solid core of support (including Max Born), such that he was able to write to a mathematical colleague in 1916 that though the theory had many opponents, "I am consoled by the following circumstance: the otherwise determined intellectual strength of the adherents greatly exceeds that of the opponents." Among those who took an active interest in the theory were Lorentz, Ehrenfest, and the great astronomer de Sitter, who sent a copy of Einsteins 1916 treatise on the general theory to Eddington in England, immediately awaking his interest. Aside from such people, I would say that the most general reaction of physicists to the general theory was bewilderment rather than outright opposition. Allen Esterson Former lecturer, Science Department Southwark College, London http://www.esterson.org/ --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
