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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Flegelpuss (talk | contribs) at 17:17, 20 September 2009 (→Your repeated reverts of sourced material). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Poincaré or Einstein?

Misplaced Pages is not the right place for rewriting history. Most historians say that Einstein and not Poincaré developed SR. See the discussion here: Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics#Poincare better than Einstein edits by Schlafly?.....--D.H (talk) 15:20, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

You recently said the following: "I think we both agree that Poincaré invented at least 90% of special relativity before Einstein. (light synchronisation, relativity principle, philosophical relativity of time, etc.). Well, this is also the opinion of most (not all) historians of science." Why are you contradicting yourself here? Please quit mass-undoing my painstaking factual corrections and removal of POV language. (BTW, I'd include Lorentz and others in that 90% along with Poincaré, albeit it can't be called "relativity" theory until Poincaré). Flegelpuss (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but Poincaré stopped shortly before inventing the complete theory. He remained the notion of a stationary aether, distinguished between true and local time etc. BTW: My or your opinion is totally irrelevant. Misplaced Pages has to avoid original research and must rely on secondary sources. And your edits are in contradiction of the overwhelming majority of those sources. So please stop. (See Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Physics#Poincaré-POV-pushing.) --D.H (talk) 15:51, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

The notion of "complete theory" is arbitrary. Einstein's version is experimentally indistinguishable from Poincare's and Lorentz's, it just appears to use fewer axioms. The "ether" part is no more important than different quantum mechanical interpretations. If Many Worlds became the dominant paradigm, Heisenberg and Schroedinger would be still be considered the main discoverers of QM (of course that leaves out many important predecessors and successors there too). You haven't cited any sources that factually contradict any of my edits. Some of them are obvious POV edits, others are factual disputes. Your mass-undoing shows that you haven't carefully thought about them as I have. Please stop the mass-undos. If you have good justification for undoing any _particular_ careful edit I have made, that is fair game, but you're out of bounds with the mass-undos. Flegelpuss (talk) 15:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

BTW by "obvious POV edits", I mean taking out obviously subjective POV nonsense, like calling Einstein's version of the theory (as opposed to his predecessors that invented "90%" of SR, or successors like Minkowski) "radical", "fundamental", and other such nonsense-phrases that have no places in neutral POV articles. Flegelpuss (talk) 16:04, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Maybe the day will come, when it is accepted by most historians that there is no essential/radical difference between the Poincaré-Lorentz ether theory and special relativity. But for now, this is not the case and therefore we cannot present this view in Misplaced Pages. You asked me for references - the articles contain a lot of them (Pais, Holton, Miller, Galison, etc.), read them. BTW: It was you who started with mass edits without using references - I've provided a lot of them. (The only undisputed thing you contributed was the fact, that in Einstein's time the atom concept was widely used, this is in fact correct). BTW: The articles already present the brilliant contributions of Poincaré to relativity - I can remember the time when Poincaré's contributions were not even mentioned. --D.H (talk) 16:22, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Every one of my edits was carefully thought out and based on sources already referenced in the Misplaced Pages articles (such as the fact, which is not in dispute, that Poincaré was the first to explain Lorentz in terms of the principles of relativity), or based on removing POV. That POV may be "accepted by most historians" is not nearly good enough to portray it as fact when it is obviously in dispute. Again, if you dispute a particular edit I made I am happy to reconsider it, but thank you for stopping the mass-undos. Flegelpuss (talk) 16:36, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

As I said, your edits contradict currently accepted views - and this mainstream view is that Poincaré uses the relativity principle to hide the aether, while Einstein invented a "radical" new theory of space and time - and only this counts on WP. So it's clear that your edits will reverted soon (by me or by others). There is simply no room for further discussion, unless most historians change their view on this subject. --D.H (talk) 16:58, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

Your repeated reverts of sourced material

You currently appear to be engaged in an edit war according to the reverts you have made on Annus Mirabilis papers. Note that the three-revert rule prohibits making more than three reversions on a single page within a 24 hour period. Additionally, users who perform several reversions in content disputes may be blocked for edit warring even if they do not technically violate the three-revert rule. When in dispute with another editor you should first try to discuss controversial changes to work towards wording and content that gains a consensus among editors. Should that prove unsuccessful, you are encouraged to seek dispute resolution, and in some cases it may be appropriate to request page protection. Please stop the disruption, otherwise you may be blocked from editing. - DVdm (talk) 16:49, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

DVdm, I did not start the revert war and you are coming very close to violating the 3-revert rule. Sourcing is insufficient to support disputed POV material portrayed as fact. All my edits were carefully thought out in contrast to your mass-undos. I am more than happy to look over my edits again and restore any source material that supports a non-POV statement if you stop the reversion war (and since you want to discuss it, it would be helpful for you to point out which material you have in mind). Flegelpuss (talk) 17:17, 20 September 2009 (UTC)