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Einstein, Hawking, and a myth about relativity



I find the history of physics -- relativity in particular -- to
be a fascinating subject, replete with larger-than-life
characters and, sometimes, mythological stories. Here is a little
piece, which I originally wrote elsewhere, that deals with the
circumstances surrounding a relativity myth repeated by Stephen
Hawking. It is the sort of little story which might assist in
bringing relativity to life while teaching to students. (I have
modified this from the original to remove previous context not
known to the readers here.)


"From the start general relativity was recognized to be
a major intellectual revolution that transformed our
ideas of space and time from a fixed background to a
dynamical entity influenced by the events taking
place in it. The theory, however, was thought to be
almost impossibibly complicated mathematically; in the
1920s there were said to be only a dozen people in the
world who understood it. It was regarded as having
little practical importance because it was believed
that the gravitational field would never become
sufficiently strong that there would be much difference
between the predictions of general relativity and those
of the much simpler Newtonian theory of gravity."

These words were written by Stephen Hawking, "Theoretical
Advances in General Relativity," pp. 145-152, in "Some
Strangeness in the Proportion: A Centennial Symposium to
Celebrate the Achievements of Albert Einstein," Edited by Harry
Woolf, _Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc._, 1980.

The centennial of Einstein's birth (born March 14, 1879) in 1979
saw an abundance of symposiums, books, television specials, etc.
throughout the world. I have a number of fascinating books in
which the most well-known of the time paid tribute to Einstein
and his accomplishments. One of the more interesting, and
comprehensive, is the Volume from which Hawking's quotation was
taken.

The Institute of Advanced Study, at Princeton, was home to
Einstein from 1933 to 1955. It was fitting that the Institute
hosted a symposium where for four days in March of 1979 the
greatest living physicists of the time met to give papers on
Einstein, relativity, and quantum theory, and to have open
discussions after each grouping of papers. I will not attempt to
give a complete list of the Contributors and Discussants, but I
will partially note Peter Bergmann, Hans Bethe, P.A.M. Dirac,
Freeman J. Dyson, Stephen W. Hawking, Charles W. Misner, Ernest
Nagel, Phillip J.E. Peebles, Roger Penrose, I. I. Rabi, Wolfgand
Rindler, Julian Schwinger, W.G. Unruh, Steven Weinberg, John
Archibald Wheeler, E. Wigner, to name a few.

Hawking's contribution is interesting in itself -- after the
brief introduction to general relativity he morphs into cosmology
and eventually the beginnings of quantum gravity -- but I chose
it to highlight how some mythology surrounding Einstein continues
to be propagated till this day. Note how Hawking says:

"The theory, however, was thought to be almost
impossibibly complicated mathematically; in the 1920s
there were said to be only a dozen people in the world
who understood it."

This is a peculiar statement, for several reasons. First, as I
have discussed in detail elsewhere, in 1921 a prize of $5000 was
offerred by "Scientific American" for the "best essay to explain
Einstein's theories to the general reader." There were an
enormous number of entries -- in the morning of November 1st
alone 120 essays were received -- including essays from notables
such as William de Sitter and E.T. Bell, as well as many, many
unknowns. The quality of these many essays were, in general,
judged to be quite good, so why would one think that in the 1920s
only a dozen people understood general relativity?

The answer to this goes back to the famous deflection of light
experiments in 1919, when Einstein was catapulted into being an
instant world-wide celebrity. I previously wrote:

"The confirmation of Einstein's prediction of the
deflection of a light ray grazing the surface of the
Sun led to headlines all over the world proclaiming the
accomplishment, proclamations similar to the November
7, 1919, headline of the London Times: "Newtonian Ideas
Overthrown." A New York Times article headlined on
November 10, 1919,

LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS

Men of Science More or Less Agog Over Results of
Eclipse Observations.

EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS

Stars Not Where They Seemed or Were Calculated to be,
but Nobody Need Worry."

One of the smaller headlines was "A Book for 12 Wise Men," "No
More in All the World Could Comprehend It, Said Einstein When His
Daring Publishers Accepted It." The story ends with: "When he
offerred his last important work to the publishers, he warned
them there were not more than twelve persons in the whole world
who would understand it, but the publishers took the risk."

This was, at worst, a complete fabrication, or, at best, someone
like Einstein pulling the reporter's leg. However, it is most
likely the former, even though J.J. Thomson informed the
reporters that "it was not possible to put Einstein's theory into
really intelligible words" and "Enough has been said to show the
importance of Einstein's theory, even if it cannot be expressed
clearly in words." Undoubtedly, Thomson was talking for himself,
because two years later many hundreds of essays were provided
which accomplished what Thomson was quoted as being impossible to
do.

So Hawking was just repeating a likely fairy tale started by a
reporter in 1919, a tale which was ostensively contradicted by
the "Scientific American" essay contest in 1921. However, the
story has an amusing precedent, as reported by S. Chandrasekhar
in "Verifying the Theory of Relativity," _Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists_, pp. 17-22, 1975.

On November 6, 1919, there was a joint meeting in London of the
Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. The Astronomer
Royal, Sir Frank Dyson, discussed the Eddington expeditions and
stated "After a careful study of the plates I am prepared to say
that there can be no doubt that they confirm Einstein's
prediction." The arch etherist, Sir Oliver Lodge, was expected to
offer counter arguments, but reportedlyy just walked out. It was
left to Ludwig Silberstein to offer some level of criticism.

After the meeting, Silberstein went up to Sir Arthur Eddington,
and complimented him by saying that Eddington was one of the only
three people who really understood relativity. When Eddington
failed to respond, Silberstein said "Don't be so modest,
Eddington." To which Eddington replied "Not at all. I'm just
wondering who the third one might be." A biting reply, since
Eddington was generally known as being second to grasping
relativity, next to Einstein.

--
Stephen
sjs@compbio.caltech.edu

Ignorance is just a placeholder for knowledge.

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