Talk:Albert Einstein

Correct Introduction?

Please correct introduction to:

Albert Einstein (14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a Jewish American (German-born) theoretical physicist.

טחינה (talk) 07:56, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

That isn't really anymore correct for the lead than the current version at which afaik other editors arrived after longer discussions. Einstein's national designation is rather complicated as he was holding several citizenships during his lifetime (German/Würtemberg, Swiss, American) and was even stateless for a while. Listing combined citizenship however is usually avoided as it ambiguous (for instance German-American might refer to an American with German ancestry or a person holding both citizenships (parallel or over time)).

Religious or ethnical designations are usually not given in the lead either, unless they are of particular importance for their work or for whatever aspect made them (primarily) encyclopedic noteworthy in the first place. As Einstein is primarily known as one of leading physicists of his time and the author of special and general relativity, that doesn't seem to be the case here, consequently his religion/ethnic is not stated in the lead.--Kmhkmh (talk) 08:31, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

 Not done. See the talk page archives: [1] - DVdm (talk) 08:30, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

If he wasn't Jewish, he wouldn't have to escape from Germany to USA, that would have changed all course of history. טחינה (talk) 08:59, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Not really, he did almost all of his important works in physics while living in Switserland and Germany: Due to his pacifist and "left" views he might have fled Nazi-Germany anyway (even without being Jewish). And the atom bomb would have been built anyway, his letter at best sped up things in the US a little. Also as pointed out above, this issue has been extensively discussed in the past already (see DVdm's link).--Kmhkmh (talk) 11:52, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

An encyclopedia should reflect the reality. He was Jewish, so this fact must be stated clearly/explicitly. Not mentioning that Albert Einstein was Jewish, is exactly as not writing that Donald Trump is an American. טחינה (talk) 21:20, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

See the archives. And see also similar remarks at Talk:Richard Feynman#He was Jewish. Please do not rewrite history - DVdm (talk) 21:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)

Replacement of Citation template

@Anomalocaris: If you replace the citation template by cite web or equivalents, then you defunct the previously working link in the references list. E.g. if you click on "2. ^ Pais (1982)"-link in the Citations list, the browser will not anymore jump to the corresponding full reference (Pais, Abraham (1982). Subtle is .... ISBN 978-0-19-853907-0.) in the Further reading list and highlight the corresponding text! That's one main aspect of the citation template! -- ZH8000 (talk) 22:31, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

ZH8000: Thank you for the clear explanation! I have solved the problem by inserting |ref=harv in the {{cite...}} templates. If there are further issues, let me know. —Anomalocaris (talk) 01:23, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 July 2018

The statement below should be removed or at least rephrased to show it is a claim and not a fact; to represent it in this manner should require a direct reference from Albert Einstein himself. Furthermore, I would argue that an outright removal is best because of the inherent ambiguous nature of the sentence. What does "knowledge gap" refer to? Does it mean that Einstein had no competency, little competency or moderate competency in Nuclear Physics? The original author should be more specific on the nature of Russi's contribution to Einstein's education in Nuclear Physics.

"Mody would occasionally fill in knowledge gaps that Einstein had in Nuclear Physics." The81flames (talk) 14:41, 26 July 2018 (UTC)

 Done That entire passage was added by an editor who received countless warnings and advisory messages regarding the problematic content that they added to various Wikipedia articles in the time they were active. Problems with adding plagiarized text and unsubstantiated claims, including an unwillingness to curb these additions, eventually led to that editor being blocked. I think it is prudent to take the information they've added here and remove it as suspect. The idea that Mr. Russi Mody -- an accomplished and successful Indian industrialist in his own right -- lent his expertise in physics to Einstein in between tickling the ivories seems to be a claim that would warrant extra references.  spintendo  08:54, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 September 2018

Fortnite gang kamryn (talk) 19:00, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

change date of birth to 1876

 Not done Nope, since that would contradict our cited sources which indicate he was born in 1879. General Ization ^Talk 19:03, 17 September 2018 (UTC)

Query about wording

@DVdm: "Reconciled Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light" (my italics). Are you sure Einstein expressed it such a restricted way—without a hint that it's more generally applicable over the range of speeds? Source? Tony (talk) 10:35, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

• The problem lies in the wording, which is why I edited it. It says that Einstein reconciled blah blah by introducing major changes to mechanics close to the speed of light. That's not what is meant, surely. Tony (talk) 10:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Hi Tony1, it depends on which changes one considers. The changes to the formulae of mechanics are of course neither major or minor. They are just changes. But the changes to the values are only major in the vicinity of the speed of light. For small speeds the changes are minor. That is what the original wording tries to convey, and your edit removed that. The original wording provided more information and was fine, so I undid the edit. - DVdm (talk) 11:23, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

The original and reinstated wording (which is displayed just above) is completely misleading. It says that the changes to mechanics he introduced were only "close to the speed of light". Are you sure you don't mean the changes he exemplified? Do you see the problem? Tony (talk) 14:34, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

It is not the changes that are close to the speed of light. It is the the part of mechanics that is close to the speed of light: "mechanics close to the speed of light". In that part of mechanics, the changes are major indeed. I don't see a problem. - DVdm (talk) 14:53, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

There is a big problem with the wording. It doesn't express what you express here, but something very different (and untenable). Have you read my post above carefully? Tony (talk) 02:47, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Outside opinion here: now that DVdm explains it, I can see that the intent expressed is that close to the speed of light, the changes that Einstein introduced are major. But I certainly was not able to grasp that on first reading, so I agree with Tony that it needs to be expressed better. I've only read this talk page, not the changes, so I don't know if the way he expressed it is great. DVdm, since you clearly know the intent, can you just find a more clear way to express it? Dicklyon (talk) 02:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

 OK, done: [2]. Thanks for your comment. - DVdm (talk) 06:56, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

The following can be misread:

It reconciles Maxwell's equations for electricity and magnetism with the laws of mechanics, by introducing changes to mechanics, resulting in small changes in the Newtonian limit and large changes in situations where objects are moving at speeds close to the speed of light. 

The above wording seems to be saying that the changes that Einstein introduced to mechanics resulted in changes in the definition of the "Newtonian limit". Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 10:49, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to hone - DVdm (talk) 11:59, 20 September 2018 (UTC)

Fine-tuning (honing) didn't work. What made the sentence hard to fix was the entire surrounding context. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 08:00, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

@Tony1 and Dicklyon: Does my rewording work? Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 08:18, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

PCH, to me, your recent change is good. But I'm not in the field. Tony (talk) 09:51, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

That is precisely why your input is valuable! An encyclopedia is not supposed to be a forum when show-offs get to baffle the target audience with their supposedly deep knowledge of a technical subject. This is an Albert Einstein biography, not a technical article meant to go into detail about his theories. For example, a statement saying that Minkowski understood the principle of relativity "...to be a generalization of rotational invariance from space to space-time" not only snows the typical reader, it is also misleading. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 14:54, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Agreed. But let's be fair, "a generalization of rotational invariance from space to space-time", is a pretty spectacularly nifty thing to contemplate, isn't it? . - DVdm (talk) 14:59, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Sure! - DVdm (talk) 10:56, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

The text reads better, for sure. But it also attributed some interpretation of Einstein to his primary sources, which I'm not at all sure I agree with (that is, for example, I'm not at all sure his original papers argued that the ether theory was superfluous, even though that was an implication of it). I don't know if this came in with recent edits or was there before (the diffs are complicated!). It would be good to see secondary sources for the interpretive stuff, so I tagged for citation needed. Dicklyon (talk) 02:50, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Some of the statements that you question were carried over from previous version. Also, I had also noticed the need for additional references, but you tagged before I could fill them in. Will take care of them as soon as I am able. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 03:09, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

I'm surprised you did not tag It reconciled conflicts between Maxwell's equations (the laws of electricity and magnetism) and the laws of Newtonian mechanics by introducing changes to the laws of mechanics, but on the other hand did tag the statement about the aether being made superfluous. That was a plain, direct statement in Einstein's paper requiring no interpretation. Anyhow, I added a note with an interwiki link to Saha's translation. Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (talk) 05:22, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Is he the most intelligent person ever?

In my opinion, he may not be THE most intelligent but he may be ONE of the most intelligent people. Having an IQ of 160, he shares the same IQ as of Stephen Hawking. He has been respected and honored for the equation of E=mc2. BRAINLY456 (talk) 07:29, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

BRAINLY456, I share your admiration for Einstein, but please ask general questions at the reference desk. Talk pages are for discussion about improvements to the article, not general discussion of the article subject. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 07:48, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

If they did share that would be only 80 each! But I've never seem any claim that Einstein was even ONE of the most intelligent people. Many dispute the common assumption that intelligence can be measured by IQ score, let alone creative thinking. Martinevans123 (talk) 08:31, 25 October 2018 (UTC)

Ok sorry

Semi-protected edit request on 6 November 2018

he is very smart 124.169.163.251 (talk) 02:06, 6 November 2018 (UTC)