Re: New version of a relativity FAQ

Pmb wrote:
"Daryl McCullough" <stevendaryl3016@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:g40sm902rmt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Einstein was not familiar with Riemannian geometry. He was not familiar
with the coordinate-free formulation of physics.

That's quite far from the truth.

No. While Daryl's first sentence is questionable (how "familiar" was he? -- by TODAY'S standards not very, but by the more relevant standards of 1915 he was an expert). Daryl's second sentence is historically accurate.


I don't believe that Einstein was aware of the coordinate-free
way to define vectors and tensors.

The very fact that they are tensors means that they are coordinate indepenant, i.e. their definition does not depend on a particular cooridinate system.

You prove Daryl's point -- TODAY we know this, but in 1954 when Einstein died, only a handful of mathematicians understood this (in a geometrical context, not a physical one), and AFAIK no physicists had yet studied it; the physics literature before 1954 does not have coordinate-free formulations.


Tom Roberts
.

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