Talk:General relativity priority dispute

Who started this dispute, and why?
This article is about a "dispute". However, it is historically clear that neither Hilbert nor Einstein considered there to be a dispute. Experts in gravitational theory view the work of Einstein and Hilbert to be of completely different character (physics vs math). So who created this dispute and why? The article does not discuss this seemingly critical issue. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:07, 7 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Looks like a key reference of the backstory of the "dispute" is Earman, John; Glymour, Clark (1978). "Einstein and Hilbert: Two Months in the History of General Relativity". Archive for History of Exact Sciences. 19 (3): 291–308. ISSN 0003-9519. Johnjbarton (talk) 00:14, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Sections headings should not be questions.
Two section headings use questions: These run against the Manual of Style: MOS:SECTIONSTYLE
 * Did Hilbert claim priority for parts of general relativity?
 * Did Einstein develop the field equations independently?

New heading for this existing content are difficult to imagine. Hilbert never claimed priority as you can tell from reading the section. "Hilbert's non-claim for priority" seems a bit odd as a heading. Einstein clearly worked with multiple people including Hilbert in the years he drove to find the General Theory.

Maybe a better approach would be to put all of this existing material under the "Scholars" section. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:20, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Completely new introduction.
As pointed out in a recent edit by another editor, some content in the intro was out of place. After reading the article I realized the intro was almost all off base. The article is about various historians or physicists with history bits in books, all talking about the interaction of Hilbert and Einstein. So I rewrote the intro to say exactly that. I specifically did not include any of the opinions in the intro and stuck to facts. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:33, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

Taking a stand on the resolution of the dispute.
The user @24.73.197.114 has repeated added a sentence implying that the dispute has been resolved. This is not correct.

There are many papers and books that discuss aspects of this dispute. None are authoritative. No one source can be used to defend any choice: this is a dispute with multiple sources.

As a community encyclopedia we can either agree to not take a stand at all or we can agree to a particular stand.

Based on my reading of most of the sources here the consensus stand I would propose:


 * There is general agreement that Einstein discovered all the significant aspects of the theory before and during the time he corresponded with Hilbert and that Hilbert derived the theory in a more elegant and mathematically sophisticated way; they reported their final results almost simultaneously.


 * I'm also ok with no stand

I have already posted on User_talk:24.73.197.114 asking this user to stop and to discuss in this talk page. I'm now asking again. Johnjbarton (talk) 04:20, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Stephen Hawking says Hilbert was first, before Einstein
See A brief history of time by Hawking. He says Hilbert first published the theory five days before Einstein. This must be written into Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.73.197.114 (talk) 20:57, 10 December 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for engaging on this Talk page.
 * I reverted your edit for the several reasons:
 * The information already exists in the page. See the first sentence of "Did Einstein develop the field equations independently?" The dates of the talks given by Hilbert on Nov. 20 1915 and by Einstein Nov. 25 1915 are in the article as well. Kip Thorne's comments are similar. Almost every source comments on these two dates.
 * Hawking is not an expert on the history of Hilbert and Einstein, but many such experts are referenced in the article.
 * You are paraphrasing Hawking incorrectly. Here is quote from Hawking's 1999 article for Time Magazine which featured Einstein on the cover: "Einstein had discussed his ideas with the mathematician David Hilbert during a visit to the University of Gottingen in the summer of 1915, and Hilbert independently found the same equations a few days before Einstein. Nevertheless, as Hilbert admitted, the credit for the new theory belonged to Einstein. It was his idea to relate gravity to the warping of space-time." (Hawking, Stephen. "A brief history of relativity." Time 154.27 (1999): 66-71.)
 * The article should not include a conclusion in the intro since the historians did not come to a conclusion. As discussed in the topic "Taking a stand on the resolution of the dispute." wikipedia editors could decide to add a conclusion in the intro based on a consensus developed by reading the sources. Until that happens we should not have this info in the intro.
 * I understand that you think you are somehow 100% correct. Based on my reading of the sources you are not correct. If you want to pursue this further I suggest you post to Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Physics, asking other editors to look in to this issue. You may wish to read more at Dispute resolution. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:46, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Since this is a dispute between historians and not between physicists, I moved Kip Throne and Hawking into a special section. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:32, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @24.73.197.114 I replaced your recent edits claiming an undisputed fact with a sentence referencing three papers that dispute this fact. Whether or not Hilbert presented the correct equations is not known. There are sources going both ways.
 * I encourage you to stop editing this page until you have interacted with other editors and developed a consensus for such changes. Johnjbarton (talk) 21:43, 11 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @24.73.197.114 I reverted your edit again. The claim you are inserting is both inaccurate and disputed. I have already given my reasons and I heard no reply. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:53, 12 December 2023 (UTC)
 * @‎24.73.197.114 Again I reverted your edits. Your reference "The Universe in a Nutshell, Page 19" is a reprint of the Time magazine article that is already quoted in the article. The text you added, "states that Hilbert presented the correct field equations." does not match what Hawking wrote. Here are Hawking's words about Einstein:
 * "He had discussed his ideas with the mathematician David Hilbert during a visit to the University of Göttingen in the summer of 1915, and Hilbert independently found the same equations a few days before Einstein. Nevertheless, as Hilbert himself admitted, the credit for the new theory belonged to Einstein. It was his idea to relate gravity to the warping of spacetime."
 * So you are distorting the source to make a point. That is not how Wikipedia works. Moreover, there are many other sources in this article. You make no consideration of their point of view, which agrees with what Hawking actually wrote rather than your distortion.
 * You have not replied to my discussion points. Johnjbarton (talk) 02:58, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

20 November events are disputed.
@24.73.197.114 I deleted most of the content of the paragraph concerning 20 Nov. This section of the article is not a chronological record of all discussion around the events. This section is intended only to give the undisputed parts of the controversy in order to focus on the controversy. Please do not edit this paragraph any more without building consensus through discussion. Johnjbarton (talk) 23:35, 16 December 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to set Edit semi-protected.
We have had an annoying, steady low level stream of unwelcome edits on this page, always from unregistered users targeting just this page. Is it appropriate for Template:Edit_semi-protected? @DVdm Johnjbarton (talk) 03:22, 30 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Perhaps next time . Cheers - DVdm (talk) 10:35, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

Lots of original research here?
I had a quick look at this article, the Did Hilbert... section, and it seemed like somebody making an argument from a source (rather than pointing to a source describing the argument), and the counter dismissing the argument as obviously wrong, without any references at all.

There was no point editing it as most of the section would need to have been deleted. Anyway, if it is reflective of the rest of the article it seems to need a complete overhaul or possible deletion.

As it stands it seems more like a private quarrel between editors rather than a dispute between great scientists. Conan The Librarian (talk) 00:21, 14 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I've had more than a quick look. The "dispute" is referenced in the article as a real thing that historians made up. That is notable and the number of references bearing this topic make the it well over the bar for an article. Moreover I would oppose deleting this article because I believe that will cause unregistered users to change the more important science articles on general relativity and Einstein. Having all of these references in one place is a big advantage for verification.
 * The "Did Hilbert..." section is a problem. The question seems to be posed by an editor rather than reporting on a question posed by a source. The first two paragraphs are editorialization AFAICT: no secondary source. I would check that the first paragraph is simply not refed rather than WP:OR. The other question section has a similar issue.
 * This article is basically about historians and changing it to make it more so would improve it. Thus rather than sections on questions made up by editors, the sections would be either chronological or organized by historians or perhaps their main lines of argument. Johnjbarton (talk) 01:13, 14 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that's fair enough on the wider article. Agree on the section, though the problem is on both editorial sides I think, neither conforming to WP standards. I won't pursue this further now, was just flagging it after a drive-by read... Conan The Librarian (talk) 05:32, 14 March 2024 (UTC)