Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute
Leo Corry,
Jürgen Renn,
*
John Stachel
According to the commonly accepted view, David Hilbert
completed the general theory of relativity at least 5 days before
Albert Einstein submitted his conclusive paper on this theory on
25 November 1915. Hilbert's article, bearing the date of
submission 20 November 1915 but published only on 31 March 1916, presents a generally covariant theory of gravitation, including field
equations essentially equivalent to those in Einstein's paper. A close
analysis of archival material reveals that Hilbert did not
anticipate Einstein. The first set of proofs of Hilbert's paper
shows that the theory he originally submitted is not generally
covariant and does not include the explicit form of the field equations
of general relativity.
L. Corry, Cohn Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science
and Ideas, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, IL-69978 Tel-Aviv, Israel.
J. Renn, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science,
Wilhelmstrasse 44, D-10117 Berlin, Germany.
J. Stachel, Boston University, Department of Physics, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed at
renn{at}mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de
