2015/12/23 by Lee Smolin, Smolin, Lee
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Differential Geometry Research #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #History and Philosophy of Physics (physics.hist-ph) #Relativity and Gravitational Theory #gr-qc #hep-th #physics.hist-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1512.07551
This is an expanded version of a text that was originally prepared for, and its Polish translation appeared in, the September 2015 issue of Niezbednik inteligenta. An extract also appears in the Fall/Winter 2015/2016 edition of Inside the Perimeter. Latex 14 pages
arxiv created 2015/12/23 · openalex publication_date 2015/12/23 · arxiv updated 2015/12/24 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
There is a myth that Einstein's discovery of general relativity was due to his following beautiful mathematics to discover new insights about nature. I argue that this is an incorrect reading of the history and that what Einstein did was to follow physical insights which arose from asking that the story we tell of how nature works be coherent.