If it's not true, then it's a well-cooked story...

 If it's not true, then it's a well-cooked story...

 

Well, you have all heard the question, "Did Einstein steal the Maxwell-Lorentz theory?" So, it's not a question that could lead to conspiracy theories or anything like that, anyway. Einstein did indeed use the Maxwell-Lorentz formulas, he named them within his treatise, but he didn't include a citation.

 

It is quite possible that both Lorentz and as well as Poincare, who also worked out these mathematical formulas, may have never understood their physical meaning, i.e. how these formulas interpreted the physical world.

 

In any case, Einstein himself, in order to finally arrive at the theory of relativity, went through a certain amount of reflection and thoughts. It should not escape us that he started with the concept of the mechanical ether, which he abandoned by accepting the constancy of the speed of light.

 

It was on this change of views that he tried to avoid getting involved with the Maxwell-Lorentz formulas by devising a theory of emission, but he continued with these formulas - at least in the part where they were applicable - and abandoned his original notions of the wave nature of light.

 

This was perhaps the time when Einstein could unify the two conceptions of light (wave and particle), since, of course, he had relativised the concept of time.

 

The irony of the story is that this synthesis of the two theories was something that was achieved more than 20 years later, with quantum field theory, but it never met with the satisfaction of Einstein himself.

 

So tell me, if this story was not true, could it not well be considered a well-cooked story?

In the photos you can see:

Albert Einstein

Henri Poincaré 

Hendrik Lorentz

James Clerk Maxwell

It is not at all "weird" for some people to have the capacity tο get involved in fields other than their field of expertise

It is, indeed, amazing how some people, and among them, some with great minds and achievements in a specialised field, had interests, knowledge and involvement in other "seemingly" - perhaps - unrelated fields. But it is equally, reprehensibly, astonishing how many people are alienated by this fact. That is, they expect the lawyer to be concerned only with the law, the engineer to be concerned only with engineering, the doctor only with medicine, the philologist only with philology, etc. If these scientists engage in or show that they understand subjects that belong to scientific fields outside their specialisation, then this seems to some at least "strange"! It is a mindset for some people.

So let it be. To demonstrate the opposite of such a mindset, there are, indeed, many examples of great personalities who in their lives have been involved in other fields beyond their specialisation. Take, for example, the great James_Clerk_Maxwell. 

Apart from his theory with its 4 famous equations, i.e.

• the 1st equation

∫s D.dS = ∫v ρ dV = q

where,

q is the net charge contained in volume V

S is the surface bounding volume V

which signifies that: The total electric_displacement through the surface enclosing a volume is equal to the total charge within the volume.

• the 2nd equation

∫s B.dS = 0

which signifies that: The total outward flux of magnetic_induction B through any closed surface S is equal to zero.

• the 3rd equation

Φc E. dI = — ∫s ∂B/∂t. dS

which signifies that: The electromotive_force (e.m.f. e = ∫C E.dI) around a closed path is equal to the negative rate of change of magnetic_flux linked with the path (since magnetic flux Φ = ∫s B.dS).

• the 4th equation

Φc H.dI = ∫s (J + ∂D/∂t).dS

which signifies that: The magnetomotive_force (m.m.f. = Φc H. dI) around a closed path is equal to the conduction_current plus displacement_current through any surface bounded by the path.

that greatly helped the ushering of #physics into the new era and the foundation of SpecialRelativity and QuantumMechanics, Maxwell also wrote poems. One of them, titled "Rigid Body" is attached herewith.