If Einstein did not discover Theory of Relativity in 1905, how many years did it take for others to discover?

Question

It is generally misunderstood by general public that if Einstein didn't exist, there is no Theory of Relativity. But it's not true. Other great physicist like Niels Bohr surely would have discovered it without him. The question is, how many years later? I would say 5 years (in 1910)?

Answer 1

Henri Poincare was very close to special relativity in 1905. I would guess that 2-3 years would have been enough for someone to make the connection. However, general relativity would have been delayed by quite a while without Einstein. I'd guess somewhere around two decades.

Answer 2

Oh, no way 5 years. The reason Albert Einstein did not receive the Nobel Prize for his Theories of Relativity is because nobody really understood them. That's how genius Einstein was. They gave him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921 for his works on the photoelectric effect (sort of what happens to white shirts under black light), because they knew he deserved to get the Nobel Prize, they just couldn't understand what he meant by the Theories of Relativity. However, it could have been 1 year or less that someone else could have explained relativity. And if they did, they probably wouldn't have explained it to the extent that Einstein did. Even today, it takes a vast amount of knowledge in this area to fully, or almost fully understand these concepts. Albert Einstein wrote "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", a paper in 1905 on the Theory of Special Relativity. The Theory of General Relativity is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Einstein from 1907-1915. So yes, surely relativity would have, in one way or another, have been made understandable by some other physicists, 5 or more years later, no-one can tell. I hope this helped!

Answer 3

Relativity was actually first postulated by Galileo. What Einstein worked out was General Relativity and Special Relativity.



General Relativity was already being worked on and Einstein simply helped firm it up.



He actually got it wrong twice and had to publish new papers with math corrections.



At one point Einstein actually had it right, but the math was in conflict with General science believed in. Einstein's math showed that the Universe was expanding and under the views of Astronomers and Physicists this was not correct. So Einstein changed his math to fit the model.



This was a huge mistake as several scientists would later prove with other math that the universe was expanding and then Hubble showed the red shift in the spectrum which made a proof for this.



Einstein's primary work, however, was in the concept of space, time, mass, energy, gravity and light.



Einstein postultaed the mass grows smaller and time slows as you speed up. The time dilation was proven with dual atomic clocks.



Einstein viewed space as a kind of fabric and that this fabric can be distored by gravity wells. The larger the gravity well the more distortion.



That this distortion would cause an apparent visual shift, which was established during solar eclipses when stars visually close to the sun's disk were not exactly where they were supposed to be due to the gravity force of the sun, which is massive.



Einstein postulated the the speed of light in a constant in all situations and nothing can go faster than light.



It is hard to say what the others would have postulated at a later date.



It is even hard to say what happened with Einstien.



He and others were actually in serach of the holy grail of science. The unified field theory and it is possible that these pieces came from Einstein's work on the problem.



In order to unify the concept of how things work one has to thoroughly understand each concept. We are dealing with magnetic waves, radiation, photonic light emissions, gravity.



Einstein's work deals with all these factors but it doesn't present a common thread.



It doesn't stipulate that



WAVE=x2(y3)



Or



Gravity = Magnitism/Radition



This is the kind of glue they were looking for.



They were looking for either an algebric, trigonimic or caculitic way of describing how all elements of physic inter relate.



A whole bunch of them has pieces of a puzzle, Bohr, Planck, Heisenberg, Newton, Einstein and others.



But there was no comprehensive way to explain how the puzzle fits together.

Answer 4

Way, way, Too much territory to cover, in this format , and do this excellent question proper credit.



One could easily devote a chapter if not an entire book to this

topic.





Unfortunately with specific reference, You're way off base with Bohr though he's responsible for the quantum mechanics theory of sub atomic particles and interactions, and fundamental nuclear forces. If you mean , "somebody" then yes, eventually and Special Relativity, sooner rather than later. General Relativity is another story.



Mach came close to special relativity, and passed on some important insights to Einstein.



However by the time Einstein was seriously working on SR, Mach had gone senile (what we know today as Alzheimer's.)



Ironically he would not accept Einsteins ideas, being too far gone in his illness.



Earlier work by Doppler also laid some of the foundation.



I recommend "the red limit" by Timothy Ferris

for an excellent introduction and summary of who's who, and who almost did, and didn't, during thee revolution of theoretical physics in the early 20th century.



There was a theoretical mathematician around the same time,

who died rather prematurely, Ferris in his book mentions that Einstein used some of this equations, and further speculates that if he had lived, and if not for Einstein, sometime later

he would have reached the same conclusion.



Be reminided also that "General Relatively" remains one of the very greatest intellectual accomplishments in cognitive human experience, and Einstein was way, way ahead of anyone at that time.



So far ahead, that when he published the theory, only a handful of people on the entire planet at the time, understood and appreciated the vast and startling implications.



LuvUall Ba-bye.

Answer 5

2 years, 5 years, who can say? Would it have been Hendrik Lorentz, Walter Kaufmann, Max Planck, or Niels Bohr?

Or perhaps David Hilbert, or Paul Gerber ? Or somebody else?



The whole concept that we now know as Special Relativity was "in the air" around the 1890's and 1900's. Einstein gets the credit, but if he had not written up his idea when he did, I think it would have been done someone (or several people together) in 2 or 3 years. I don't think it would take as long as 5 years.

Answer 6

Long before Einstein, Johannes Friedrich Gauss and the contemporaries of his time, Kepler, Leibniz, and Riemann pondered the mysteries of the universe. But it was Gauss who devised a method to calculate the surface gravity of the Earth. Surface gravity is required to hold an atmosphere to a planet. We now know that the surface gravity on Earth is 0.5 to 2.0 Gauss. That means the magnetic field strength of the dynamo in the center of the earth (think of it as a bar magnet) is at least 1 Tesla (10,000 Gauss) to 2 Tesla (20,000 Gauss).



What is the significance of this finding?



In our Milky Way Galaxy there are 235 planetary bodies, of which 169 moons are in our Solar System. These 169 moons are the well documented satellite moons of the 9 planets. Jupiter alone has 63 moons. The challenge lies in how we can build atmospheres on them to support human life and all other living things. Also, we have to weed out the ones that are inhospitable.



Venus=0, Earth=1, Mars=2, Jupiter=63, Saturn=60, Uranus=27, Neptune=13, Pluto=3



The trick is to categorize them into planets/moons that either spin on their axis, or don't. Then, to increase the surface gravity by inserting a Superconducting Magnet into the core. The magnet would range from 2 Tesla to 15 Tesla, depending on the amount of iron/nickel that is present in the core.



Finally, we need to introduce atmospheric gases (oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, etc) into the man made electromagnetic bubble.



This website gives the exact location of each of the moons of Jupiter: http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~sheppard/satellites



and this site tells us how to make an ATMOSPHERE on all the moons: http://www.atmospheres.5u.com/index.html

Answer 7

It is not the question if not Einstein how long it would have taken to discover Theory Of relativity;



The question is how much Einstein was true?? There are lot ofcontroversies related his theories. I have lot of respect to Einsten. There is no doubt he was a genius.



But the question is how does it matter to the universe. Universe is so vast and complicated even if somebody has billions times more intelligence than Einstein still it is nothing.





My point is he was not right many times. Most of his theories are an assumptions and they can never be proved in reality. Also lot of good scientists do not accept his many theories.



He goes out of reality and facts and comes out with strange assumptions many a times.



so the answer to your question is; may be never; the theory of relativity would never be discovered by anybody as nobody would have thought wrong like Einstein so nobody would have come out with such a theory.



I always consider Newton as a better scientist than Einstein. It is simply because Newton is always fact oriented, he is always scientific, he always goes with evidences. Einstein imagines too much sometimes.



Newton is the best scientist ever happened so far not Einstein.

Answer 8

Good question. Many physicists were on the same track as Einstein. As in all good science it takes more than one mind to develop theories. I believe that Einstein spoke of this very subject.