Related papers: Was Einstein a Lone Genius?
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…
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…
This paper discusses Einstein's methodology. 1. Einstein characterized his work as a theory of principle and reasoned that beyond kinematics, the 1905 heuristic relativity principle could offer new connections between non-kinematical…
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…
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…
This article reviews the biography of the Swiss mathematician Marcel Grossmann (1878-1936) and his contributions to the emergence of the general theory of relativity. The first part is his biography, while the second part reviews his…
The intermediate stage of the development of general relativity is inseparable of Marcel Grossmann's mathematical assistance. Einstein acknowledges Grossmann's help during 1912-1914 to the development of general relativity. In fact, as with…
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's contribution to relativity is reviewed. It is pointed out that Weyl gave first unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism and it was different than the five dimensional theory of Kaluza. Einstein began his work on…
A century ago, Einstein formulated his elegant and elaborate theory of General Relativity, which has so far withstood a multitude of empirical tests with remarkable success. Notwithstanding the triumphs of Einstein's theory, the tenacious…
Before developing his 1915 General Theory of Relativity, Einstein held the "Entwurf" theory. Tullio Levi-Civita from Padua, one of the founders of tensor calculus, objected to a major problematic element in this theory, which reflected its…
Between 1905 and 1907, Einstein first tried to extend the special theory of relativity in such a way so as to explain gravitational phenomena. This was the most natural and simplest path to be taken. These investigations did not fit in with…
There is a myth that Einstein's discovery of general relativity was due to his following beautiful mathematics to discover new insights about nature. I argue that this is an incorrect reading of the history and that what Einstein did was to…
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…
The first comprehensive overview of the final version of the general theory of relativity was published by Einstein in 1916 after several expositions of preliminary versions and latest revisions of the theory in November 1915. A historical…
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,…
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…
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…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
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…