Einstein and his Legacy

Einstein is like God. Indeed, Einstein is more universally worshipped than God from any religion. Like God, Einstein generated many miracles. The year 1905 is called Einstein's annus mirabilis (year of miracle). Like other miracles, Einstein’s miracles have been intensely studied and occasionally questioned by many people. How do Einstein and his supporters respond to these questioning?  More than anything else, the theory of relativity is his signature contribution. We will briefly discuss events related to the theory of relativity.

Soon after the development of special relativity, some people realized the logical inconsistency in Lorentz transformation and special relativity. This inconsistency, which generates some paradoxes, such as twin paradox, is intrinsic. It cannot be resolved and has not been truly resolved. But experts repeatedly assure the public that the paradoxes have been resolved. However, even the authority acknowledged that, “While the result is correct, the explanation is misleading.” (Lasky, 2003) But if no one could provide a non-misleading explanation after more than a century, how could one assert the result is correct? (Chen, 2024)

General relativity is built on special relativity. If special relativity is on shaky ground, general relativity would be on shaky ground as well. But general relativity seems to be backed by strong experimental confirmations. We need to look further into the results in general relativity.

The first major success of general relativity is the explanation of the precession of perihelion of Mercury in 1915. Yet in 1898, Paul Gerber published a paper titled The Spatial and Temporal Propagation of Gravity, (Gerber, 1898). His basic idea is that the speed of gravitational propagation is finite. This finiteness of speed generates the precession of perihelion of Mercury. From the size of the precession, he calculated the speed of gravitational propagation. It is equal to the speed of light. The core of that paper is the derivation of a formula that connects the speed of propagation of gravity to the amount of precession. More than a decade later, Einstein published the identical formula. If so, why have most of us never heard of Paul Gerber?

Einstein made the following statement about Gerber’s work.

The experts are not only in agreement that Gerber’s derivation is wrong through and through, but the formula cannot be obtained as a consequence of the main assumption made by Gerber. Mr. Gerber’s work is therefore completely useless, an unsuccessful and erroneous theoretical attempt. I maintain that the theory of general relativity has provided the first real explanation of the perihelion motion of Mercury. I did not mention the work by Gerber initially, because I did not know about it when I wrote my work on the perihelion motion of Mercury; even if I had been aware of it, I would not have had any reason to mention it. (Einstein, 1920)

Gerber’s derivation began with the assumption of the finiteness of the speed of propagation of gravity. Later Einstein made the identical assumption in general relativity. Gerber’s derivation end with the formula that connects the speed of propagation of gravity to the amount of precession. Later Einstein published the identical formula. If “Gerber’s derivation is wrong through and through”, what about Einstein’s derivation?  The derivation of the formula is indeed quite long and complex. But the logic in derivation is very clear. If “the formula cannot be obtained as a consequence of the main assumption made by Gerber”, how else could Paul Gerber derive a complex formula describing reality so perfectly? Did Gerber, in 1898, steal the result from Einstein published in 1915? Nevertheless, with Einstein’s authority, Gerber’s work “faded from view” (Roseveare, 1982). 

This, and other examples, shows that many results from general relativity had been obtained earlier from Newtonian mechanics, modified or unmodified. (Chen, 2025) But because of Einstein’s power and intimidation, few people dare to mention these facts. Those few did mention the historical facts are accused of ulterior motives and are disgraced.

The following statement comes from a mainstream perspective. Still, it offers a glimpse of the prevailing social environment.

I discovered that the group opposing relativity was much broader than many historians believed till now …Aware of their marginalised position, many of Einstein's opponents turned to anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. "Our trouble in America is that all scientific journals are closed to the anti-relativists through Jewish influence. The daily press is almost entirely under the control of the Jews," Reuterdahl wrote in 1923. From this position, it was easy for Einstein's opponents to see themselves as victims rather than aggressors.

By the mid-1920s Einstein's opponents were facing overwhelming resistance, and most refrained from taking a public stance against the theory of relativity. (Wazeck, 2010)

The above quote showed that the theory of relativity did not achieve its dominance by convincing, but by intimidating. As a result, “most refrained from taking a public stance against the theory of relativity”. 

It is not uncommon for the powerful to exert their muscle in influencing the outcomes of scientific debates. But the global dominance achieved by Einstein and his backers is unprecedented. The great success of Einstein and his backers leaves little room in academia for independent thinkers. Since then, science has been largely turned into a propaganda department for the ruling class, as we have witnessed in the research of physics, medicine and climate. This is the main legacy of Einstein.

References

Chen, J, 2024, A Particle Theory of Light and Galileo Transformation, Working paper.

Chen, J. 2025, Schwarzschild radius or Soldner radius? Working paper.

Einstein, A. (1920). "Meine Antwort - Über die anti-relativitätstheoretische G.m b.H". Berliner Tageblatt. 402.

Gerber, P. (1898). "Die räumliche und zeitliche Ausbreitung der Gravitation" . Zeitschrift für Mathematik und Physik. 43: 93–104

Lasky, R.C., 2003. How does relativity theory resolve the twin paradox. Scientific American. March 17, 2003.

Roseveare, N. T (1982). Mercury's perihelion, from Leverrier to Einstein. Oxford: University Press.

Wazeck, Milena, 2010, The relativity deniers, New Scientist, 02624079, 11/13/2010, Vol. 208, Issue 2786