Related papers: How Einstein Got His Field Equations
We review and strengthen the arguments given by Einstein to derive his first gravitational field equation for static fields and show that, although it was ultimately rejected, it follows from General Relativity (GR) for negligible pressure.…
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…
The pathways along which A. Einstein and D. Hilbert independently came to the gravitational field equations are traced. Some of the papers that assert a point of view on the history of the derivation of the gravitational field equations…
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…
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…
Einstein's biographer Albrecht F\"olsing explained: Einstein presented his field equations on November 25, 1915, but six days earlier, on November 20, Hilbert had derived the identical field equations for which Einstein had been searching…
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 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…
Some highlights of the priority in the discovery of the gravitational field equations are given.
The content of Einstein's theory of gravitation is encoded in the properties of the solutions to his field equations. There has been obtained a wealth of information about these solutions in the ninety years the theory has been around. It…
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…
The evolution of the methods used to find solutions of Einstein's field equations during the last 100 years is described. Early papers used assumptions on the coordinate forms of the metrics. Since the 1950s more invariant methods have been…
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…
Einstein, when he began working on the general theory of relativity, believed that energy of any kind is the source of the gravitational field. Therefore, the energy of gravity, like any energy, must be the source of the field. It was…
In his first November 4, 1915 paper Einstein wrote the Lagrangian form of his field equations. In the fourth November 25, 1915 paper, Einstein added a trace term of the energy-momentum tensor on the right-hand side of the generally…
The mantra about gravitation as curvature is a misnomer. The curvature tensor for a standard of rest does not describe acceleration in a gravitational field but the \underline{gradient} of the acceleration (e.g. geodesic deviation). The…
A historical account of Einstein's 'Fernparallelismus' approach towards a unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism is given. In this theory, a space-time characterized by a curvature-free connection in conjunction with a…
Einstein established the theory of general relativity and the corresponding field equation in 1915 and its vacuum solutions were obtained by Schwarzschild and Kerr for, respectively, static and rotating black holes, in 1916 and 1963,…
Starting with Newton's law of universal gravitation, we generalize it step-by-step to obtain Einstein's geometric theory of gravity. Newton's gravitational potential satisfies the Poisson equation. We relate the potential to a component of…
In his 1916's first paper on gravitational waves Einstein began to speculate on interactions between the principles of the old quantum theory and his theory of gravitation. With this contribution Einstein has stimulated a lot of similar…