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If there had been no Einstein would we know about the Special Theory of Relativity?

techs

techs

Lifer
I guess the question is, are there truths out there that are discovered because of some genius of human beings, or are truths going to be discovered when the situation is right?

Put another way, based on mans knowledge at the begining of the 20th century, without Einstein, would someone else have postulated the theory shortly after the tiem Einstein did?
 
Originally posted by: techs
I guess the question is, are there truths out there that are discovered because of some genius of human beings, or are truths going to be discovered when the situation is right?

Put another way, based on mans knowledge at the begining of the 20th century, without Einstein, would someone else have postulated the theory shortly after Einstein did?
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David Hilbert was VERY close to Einsteins General Relativity, so it isn't far of a stretch to see someone else as having arrived at Special Relativity, given a bit more time. It's important to realize how much of scientific breakthrough is based on the work of others. While Einstein was certainly a genius, much of his insight came by studying the recent works of others (who are also geniuses). So they're all interconnected.

That being said, it is geniuses who make these breakthroughs, not the rank and file workers of the world. It is exception that propels mankind forward. Dedication and averages merely keep him plugging along stagnant until the next genius is born to carry us further.
 
Impossible to say for sure, unless someone was very close to postulating it around the same time.
Probably yes, though. Geniuses speed up discoveries, but no one is so intelligent that only he or she could discover something and it is impossible that anyone else could have.
 
In time I believe so yes. But there is no doubt that he was WAY ahead of his time. It might have taken a generation or more without him. In time modern technology and tools of measurement would have eventually started returning results different enough from Newtonian mechanics that something like general relativity would have been formulated. The bigger jump to me is Newton.

I am in awe of Newton!
 
here's a link to his famous 1905 paper on the theory of special relativity: http://www.pro-physik.de/Phy/pdfs/ger_890_921.pdf

If anybody can read German, you can check on the references that he makes to other literature. I think it would have been a few years at the most from my limited understanding of 19th/20th century international physics academia.
 
Working independently Leibniz and Newton both came up with Infinitesimal calculus. Had neither of them done it someone else would have came along and done it instead. It was essentially the next step in mathematics.

I am sure something similar would have happened with Einstein's theory.
 
I guess I was also wondering if it holds true for other discoveries like Flemings discovery of Penicillin or Watson and Cricks discovery of the double helix?
 
I don't know, but String Theory and the search for the Theory of Everything came way too early. Physicists are going to be busy for the next 50 years....
 
Well, at that time, they saw that light didn't follow the laws of classical mechanics, so they were eventually going to come up with the right answer.
 
Yes, he built on Maxwell but I honestly believe if he didn't someone else would have.
 
It wouldn't have been long at all before someone came up with the theory of relativity, or at least the special theory of relativity. Michelson & Morley (sp?) had just done their famous experiment which ruled out the luminous aether (the substance which propagated light.) In the process, they discovered that the speed of light was the same, regardless of the frame of reference. Or, at least, it didn't depend on which way the Earth was traveling - light was the same speed regardless of the direction in which it was measured - yet we were moving. This led to a great big "wtf??!" for physicists. "How can this be?!" Along comes Einstein, but the conclusion was inevitable.

FWIW, Einstein won a Nobel prize in physics - for his work with the photo-electric effect, NOT for the general or special theories of relativity. His work with the photo-electric effect was much more ground-breaking. As famous as E=mc² was, at the time of the theory of relativity, it didn't really mean squat. There was no way that anyone was ever going to get that energy from an atom. Along comes the discovery of the neutron & Einstein said something like "ruh rohhh, Shaggy."
 
Physists like Bohr, and Hugh Everett woudlve gotten it soon enough. They to were to busy with quantum mechanics and parallel universes however
 
Originally posted by: techs
I guess I was also wondering if it holds true for other discoveries like Flemings discovery of Penicillin or Watson and Cricks discovery of the double helix?
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in Watson's book "The Double Helix," he mentioned several people that were on the brink of making the same discovery as he did.
 
Special Theory of Relativity? Yeah, within five or ten years.

General Relativity? I think we'd still be waiting around for it. It was / is so monumentally brilliant.
 
most defiantly.

It seems as though when humanity is ready for the "next leap" of insight in a field it happens almost simultaneously in multiple places.
 
Originally posted by: MovingTarget
Maybe this belongs in Highly Technical....
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Well, I think I may have posted this in a confusing manner.
I guess I was curious as to how important "genius" is. Would truths would be discovered with or without them, and the genius only discovers them slightly sooner would have been a better way to word it.
 
Originally posted by: techs
Originally posted by: MovingTarget
Maybe this belongs in Highly Technical....
Click to expand...

Well, I think I may have posted this in a confusing manner.
I guess I was curious as to how important "genius" is. Would truths would be discovered with or without them, and the genius only discovers them slightly sooner would have been a better way to word it.
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Phrased like that I would simply ask, what monumental invention or theory has been made/discovered by anyone other than a genius?

Geniuses move the world. It doesn't have to be one particular one that does it, as it's common for many of them to be working on the same problem at the same time. But I would almost guarantee you that the person who gets it figured out is going to be 3sd's above average at least.
 
Originally posted by: freshgeardude
I think someone else would have gotten it within 15 years, yes
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this.

often people mistakenly attribute great historical accomplishments to only one person, with little consideration of the time and place where that person lived, worked...their influences.

Einstein was a revolutionary, for sure; but his ideas, like all others were a product of a community. Someone else (or several others) would have come upon his theories in the absence of Einstein.

Thought, inventions--achievements do not occur in a vacuum, as some over-reaching biographers would like us to believe.
 
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