English

Einstein and Gravitational Waves 1936-1938

History and Philosophy of Physics 2016-02-16 v1

Abstract

Around 1936, Einstein wrote to his close friend Max Born telling him that, together with Nathan Rosen, he had arrived at the interesting result that gravitational waves did not exist, though they had been assumed a certainty to the first approximation. He finally had found a mistake in his 1936 paper with Rosen and believed that gravitational waves do exist. However, in 1938, Einstein again obtained the result that there could be no gravitational waves!

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.04674,
  title  = {Einstein and Gravitational Waves 1936-1938},
  author = {Galina Weinstein},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.04674},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

Summary of several paragraphs of Section 1, Chapter 3 of my book: "General Relativity Conflict and Rivalries: Einstein's Polemics with Physicists"

R2 v1 2026-06-22T12:50:23.559Z