Related papers: Einstein the Stubborn: Correspondence between Eins…
I discuss Albert Einstein's 1916 General Theory of Relativity. I show that in Einstein's 1916 review paper, "the Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity", he derived his November 25, 1915 field equations with an additional term on…
In December 1911, Max Abraham published a paper on gravitation at the basis of which was Albert Einstein's 1911 June conclusion about a relationship between the velocity of light and the gravitational potential. In February 1912, Einstein…
Albert Einstein's journey to formulate the theory of general relativity involved significant shifts in his approach to gravitational field equations. Starting in 1912, he collaborated with Marcel Grossmann and initially explored broadly…
In his 1916 ground-breaking general relativity paper Einstein had imposed a restrictive coordinate condition, his field equations were valid for coordinate systems which are unimodular. Later, Einstein published a paper on gravitational…
I discuss Albert Einstein's 1914 review paper, "The Formal Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity" from two points of view: the main elements in the paper that appear to have led to the downfall of the Einstein-Grossman theory; and…
This short exposition starts with a brief discussion of situation before the completion of special relativity (Le Verrier's discovery of the Mercury perihelion advance anomaly, Michelson-Morley experiment, E\"otv\"os experiment, Newcomb's…
It took eight years after Einstein announced the basic physical ideas behind the relativistic gravity theory before the proper mathematical formulation of general relativity was mastered. The efforts of the greatest physicist and of the…
On the basis of his `Z\"urich Notebook' I shall describe a particularly fruitful phase in Einstein's struggle on the way to general relativity. These research notes are an extremely illuminating source for understanding Einstein's main…
The question of Einstein's rejection of the November tensor is re-examined in light of conflicting answers by several historians. I discuss these conflicting conjectures in view of three questions that should inform our thinking: Why did…
The main purpose of the present paper is to show that a correction of one mistake was crucial for Einstein's pathway to the first version of the 1915 general theory of relativity, but also might have played a role in obtaining the final…
I discuss Einstein's path-breaking November 1915 General Relativity papers. I show that Einstein's field equations of November 25, 1915 with an additional term on the right hand side involving the trace of the energy-momentum tensor appear…
In this paper I describe the genesis of Einstein's early work on the problem of motion in general relativity (GR): the question of whether the motion of matter subject to gravity can be derived directly from the Einstein field equations. In…
Albert Einstein's real "biggest blunder" was not the 1917 introduction into his gravitational field equations of a cosmological constant term \Lambda, rather was his failure in 1916 to distinguish between the entirely different concepts of…
Einstein regarded as one of the triumphs of his 1915 theory of gravity --- the general theory of relativity --- that it vindicated the action--reaction principle, while Newtonian mechanics as well as his 1905 special theory of relativity…
Hilbert's paper on ``The Foundations of Physics (First Communication),'' is now primarily known for its parallel publication of essentially the same gravitational field equations of general relativity which Einstein published in a note on…
In his Autobiographical Notes, Einstein mentioned that on his road to the final theory of general relativity it was a major difficulty to accustom himself to the idea that coordinates need not possess an immediate physical meaning in terms…
It is a little known fact that while he was developing his theory of general relativity, Einstein's initial idea was a variable speed of light theory. Indeed space-time curvature can be mimicked by a speed of light $c(r)$ that depends on…
Most early twentieth century relativists --- Lorentz, Einstein, Eddington, for examples --- claimed that general relativity was merely a theory of the aether. We shall confirm this claim by deriving the Einstein equations using aether…
The historical and conceptual foundations of General Relativity are revisited, putting the main focus on the physical meaning of the invariant ds, the Equivalence Principle, and the precise interpretation of spacetime geometry. It is argued…
A succinct chronology is given around Nov 1915, when the explicit field equations of General Relativity have been found. Evidence, unearthed by D.Wuensch, that a decisive document of Hilbert has been mutilated in recent years with the…