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Re: General Relativity publication date



The good folks at University of St. Andrews (St. Andrews, Fife,
Scotland) have an excellent website on the history of mathematics and
mathematical physics. Very thorough and well-documented. Their article
on general relativity will give you a grasp of the flurry of activity in
1915-16 as Einstein pieced GR together, and is accompanied by over 2
dozen references:
<http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/General_relativity.html>

Note that in 1915 Einstein was submitting *papers* to the Prussian
Academy of Sciences, as John Denker's post pointed out. The March 1916
submission to Annalen der Physik journal was an *article* summarizing
and explaining the complete GR theory that developed from his 1915
papers.

A word about Thinkquest.Org: the websites there are written by kids.
Thinkquest is a webpage writing competition for students aged 12-19. I
have read a lot of webquest sites, and many of them turn out excellent
work. Still, I find I get better information over the long haul by
looking for loftier credentials. My horsepucky alarm also squeals when
I come across what I call "fan sites": "This website is my homage to
the memory of Albert Einstein, the coolest brainyest dude ever to wear a
lab coat ..."

Best wishes,

Larry
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Larry Cartwright <exit60@ia4u.net>
Physics and Physical Science Teacher
Charlotte HS, Charlotte MI USA
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Larry Smith wrote:

I've seen references to General Relativity being published in 1915
<http://library.thinkquest.org/17508/Generalrelativity.html > and in 1916
<http://www.ncsa.uiuc.edu/Cyberia/NumRel/GenRelativity.html>. Was it
accepted by the journal in 1915 and appeared in the printed issue in 1916
or what? Is one a better year to quote than the other?