“I discovered it!” Darwin and Einstein also “competing for the first place”?

Text｜ Shi Xiaolei

The third issue of Physics magazine this year published a paper by Jin Xiaofeng, a professor at the Department of Physics at Fudan University, entitled "The Discovery of the Lorentz Group, One of Poincare's Special Theory of Relativity."

The core idea of ​​this paper is that Poincare and Einstein independently proposed the theory of special relativity in 1905.

Professor Jin further believes that if only one person's name can be used to title the special theory of relativity, then Poincare is more qualified than Einstein to receive this honor.

This is indeed a novel and bold statement. If it is confirmed and accepted by the community of history of physics, the narrative of the history of modern physics will be rewritten.

Since this paper has just been published and the issues and figures in the history of physics involved are so important, we have not yet received feedback from experts in the history of physics, so we will not comment on it for the time being.

But this paper touches on an intriguing topic in modern scientific history: the priority of scientific discovery.

The priority of scientific discovery was first proposed by American scholar and founder of the sociology of science Merton in 1957.

That August, he delivered a speech at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association entitled "The Priority of Scientific Discovery."

Merton recounted the disputes or conflicts caused by the priority of discovery in the history of science, such as the discovery of sunspots between Galileo and Scheiner, the dispute between Newton and Hooke over the priority of optics and celestial mechanics, the dispute between Newton and Leibniz over the invention of calculus, the discovery of the chemical properties of water by Cavendish, Watt and Lavoisier, and so on.

Merton believed that it was the scientific norms that were unanimously followed by the scientific community that led to the struggle for priority, and that scientists relied on the scarce priority of scientific discoveries to win recognition, reputation and status.

When recalling his collaboration with physicist Born, Polish physicist Infeld expressed from the bottom of his heart the anticipation and joy of scientists for publishing their results and gaining recognition: "Scientists can all experience this ecstasy, even if they have not achieved much. This pure Eureka (ancient Greek: I have found it) feeling is always mixed with very human and selfish emotions, 'I have discovered it, I will have an important paper, and it will help my future.'"

Therefore, the essence of the priority dispute is the scientists' defense of scientific norms. The priority issue of scientific discovery is closely related to the "Matthew effect" in the sociology of science, the scientific reward system, and the scientific discovery model. Since Merton proposed it, it has received long-term attention and research from the academic community.

It is sometimes not easy to adjudicate on controversial priority issues because the original data of the scientific discoveries involved need to be verified, screened and judged.

Here is an example of the dispute between Einstein and Hilbert over the priority of general relativity.

In some science history books in the past, there is a popular view that Einstein and Hilbert obtained the gravitational field equations of general relativity at about the same time.

In 1982, physics historian Pais held roughly this view when writing his biography of Einstein, but he also made a distinction: Einstein was the only founder of the general theory of relativity, while he and Hilbert both discovered the basic equations.

If the original submission record is verified, Hilbert completed the paper and submitted it on November 20, 1915, five days earlier than Einstein, although it was published several months later than Einstein.

From this we can see that, leaving aside the issue of the depth of the two men's understanding of the physical implications of the gravitational field equation, there is no dispute about Hilbert's priority in obtaining the equation.

However, with the in-depth excavation of researchers of the history of physics, the situation has changed in recent years. Ryan, director of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Germany, and his collaborators discovered that Hilbert's final officially published paper had undergone major revisions in December 1915, the proofreading version was still relatively rough, and Einstein had already published his final paper at that time.

At this point, the case has finally reached a more convincing conclusion. For Einstein and Hilbert, there were indeed some misunderstandings and unhappiness at the time, but they soon "put aside their grudges with a smile".

The example of general relativity is mainly used to illustrate the complexity of the issue of priority in scientific discoveries. At the same time, we cannot ignore the mentality and reactions of scientists when faced with the issue of priority.

From the macro perspective of the sociology of science, the issue of priority is an inherent requirement of the scientific operating mechanism, but at the micro level of specific cases and individuals, different scientists have different temperaments and reactions.

Some part ways unhappily and regard each other as enemies for life; some are humble and magnanimous and complement each other; some are moderately tolerant and endure psychological trauma.

On June 18, 1858, Darwin received a letter from the Malay Archipelago, addressed to Wallace, who was 14 years younger than him. This letter caused Darwin great anxiety, because the paper attached to the letter proposed the same theory of evolution based on natural selection that Darwin had conceived many years ago but had never published.

After struggling for several days, he wrote a letter to his good friend, geologist Lyell, in which he mentioned that the original manuscript of this theory had been completed in 1844, and their mutual friend, botanist Hooker (note: not the Hooker mentioned above) could testify to this.

At the same time, he also mentioned his dilemma, "I would rather burn all my books than let him or others say that my behavior is despicable... Please forgive me, dear friend. This is a shallow letter, written under the influence of shallow emotions."

It can be seen that Darwin was struggling internally while defending and asserting his rights. At the suggestion of Lyell and Hooker, the outline of The Origin of Species was published in the Journal of the Linnean Society that year together with Wallace's paper, and everyone was happy with the result.

Biologist Dawkins once commented on this story: "The greatness of Darwin and Wallace lies not only in their independent proposals for the theory of evolution, but also in the generosity and brilliant humanity they jointly demonstrated when facing and negotiating the priority of discovery."

Let’s talk about the story of the founding of matrix mechanics.

In July 1925, physicist Heisenberg published the first paper on matrix mechanics, taking a crucial step forward.

Soon, Born and Jordan, Heisenberg, Born and Jordan published the famous "Two-person paper" and "Three-person paper" respectively, and matrix mechanics was thus completed.

As we all know, Heisenberg won the 1932 Nobel Prize in Physics alone.

In a letter to Born in November 1933, Heisenberg said he felt guilty because the work was done by the three of them in Göttingen.

Of course, we cannot blame Heisenberg for winning the Nobel Prize, but the entire process of examining the priority of matrix mechanics and scientific awards is indeed intriguing and confusing.

Born undoubtedly did not receive the recognition he deserved, and he later even said, somewhat radically, that “almost everything in the literature about the early state of quantum mechanics is wrong.”

Chandrasekhar recalled that once at the Cavendish Laboratory, when Heisenberg, Dirac and others appeared in the lecture hall, everyone stood up and applauded. Chandrasekhar found Born beside him, with tears in his eyes, saying, "I should be there, I should be there."

Fortunately, history later compensated Born to some extent, as he won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics for his statistical interpretation of the wave function.

Similar to Born, physicist Chien-Shiung Wu also suffered injustice and harm.

In 1957, the team she led was the first to experimentally confirm the law of parity non-conservation proposed by Tsung-Dao Lee and Chen-Ning Yang in competition with several teams, which directly led to Lee and Yang winning the Nobel Prize in Physics that year.

In 1989, Wu Jianxiong wrote to another Nobel Prize winner, Steinberg, in which she confessed: "Although I have never done research for the sake of winning a prize, it still hurts me deeply when my work is ignored for some reason."

As long as the scientific enterprise exists, the issue of priority of scientific discoveries is inevitable. This is an inherent attribute or inevitable product of the operating mechanism of modern science.

The vast majority of priority issues can be properly resolved under scientific and standardized mechanisms. Some cases are inevitably mixed with the temperament of scientists and even the interests of certain groups or countries, reflecting the colorful world where science, humanity and society are entangled.

China Science Daily (2022-05-06 Page 4 Culture)

Editor | Zhao Lu

Typesetting | Guo Gang