Weinstein, Galina (2025) Convergences and Divergences: Einstein, Poincaré, and Special Relativity. [Preprint]
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Abstract
Jean-Marc Ginoux’s recent book, \emph{Poincaré, Einstein and the Discovery of Special Relativity: An End to the Controversy} (2024), seeks to close the debate over the respective roles of Poincaré and Einstein. Yet what is presented as an “end” may instead invite a more careful analysis of how similar equations can conceal divergent conceptions.
The aim here is not to rehearse priority disputes but to show how Einstein’s ether-free, principle-based kinematics marked out a path that, unlike its contemporaries, became the canonical form of special relativity. To this end, I reconstruct side by side the 1905 derivations of Poincaré and Einstein, tracing their similarities and, more importantly, their differences.
This paper reconstructs, in a novel way, the 1905 derivations of Einstein and Poincaré, highlighting their contrasting paths.
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| Item Type: | Preprint | ||||||
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| Keywords: | Einstein, Poincaré, special relativity, Lorentz, priority, addition law, group, simultaneity, synchronization, Lorentz transformation, group, ether, light postulate, charge density, Maxwell Ampere, Faraday, Gauss, field transformation, recognition, acceptance, Nobel Prize | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Science Case Studies Specific Sciences > Mathematics Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Thought Experiments |
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| Depositing User: | Dr. Galina Weinstein | ||||||
| Date Deposited: | 13 Sep 2025 12:22 | ||||||
| Last Modified: | 13 Sep 2025 12:22 | ||||||
| Item ID: | 26631 | ||||||
| Subjects: | General Issues > Explanation General Issues > History of Science Case Studies Specific Sciences > Mathematics Specific Sciences > Physics Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory General Issues > Thought Experiments |
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| Date: | 11 September 2025 | ||||||
| URI: | https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/26631 |
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