Henri Poincaré and special relativity
type: Item
instance of: scholarly article
title: Henri Poincaré and special relativity
zbMATH Open document ID: 0966.01020
published in: L'Enseignement Mathématique. 2e Série
publication date: 2001-01-30T00:00:00Z
review text: The starting point of this paper is the frequently discussed controversy about the question whether Einstein's theory of special relativity has been anticipated or independently developed by Henri Poincaré. The author does not pretend to offer a new opinion about this topic; the paper is mostly a presentation and critical evaluation of the relevant texts in chronological order, including the contributions of H. A. Lorentz. As a major result, the author finds that as early as 1898, Poincaré had recognized that the statement ``two events occur simultaneously at different places'' has no objective meaning, but contrary to Einstein in 1905, he did not attach a particularly fundamental importance to this discovery. It is not clear at what time Poincaré became aware of Einstein's theory, but according to the evidence presented by the author, this must have happened around 1909/1910. There was not much understanding between Einstein and Poincaré when they met at the first Solvay Congress in 1911, and in the letter of recommendation for Einstein of the same year, Poincaré does not mention even one achievement of Einstein. This article ends with a summary of the situation, by quoting the opinion of Louis de Broglie that it was Einstein who, by a stroke of genius, took the decisive step which led to a transformation of our ideas on space and time, but that Poincaré was (with Lorentz) the one who contributed most to make this step possible.
reviewed by: Andreas Kleinert
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 01A60
Mathematics Subject Classification ID: 83-03
zbMATH DE Number: 1558742
zbMATH Keywords: Einstein
zbMATH Keywords: Poincaré
zbMATH Keywords: Lorentz
zbMATH Keywords: theory of relativity
MaRDI profile type: Publication
author: Armand Borel
description: scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1558742