Alex Harvey and Engelbert Schucking make repeated references in their article to the “erroneous prediction” in Albert Einstein’s 1905 paper on electrodynamics. The point of the article seems to be amazement that neither Einstein nor “numerous historians of science” have focused attention on the “erroneous” calculation of time dilation, which did not take into account gravitational effects. However, historians of science do not, in general, attempt to judge the work of scientists by the standard of later developments.
In the case at hand, Einstein himself found a theory of greater generality than special relativity, on which the 1905 calculation was based. But that later discovery does not ex post facto make the earlier calculation an error. In fact, it was a correct calculation based solely on special relativistic ideas. How would Einstein’s contemporaries have reacted if he had scattered throughout the 1905 paper numerous references to Isaac Newton’s “errors”? Einstein recognized that special relativity modified Newton’s ideas, and of course general relativity was an even greater modification. Einstein did not go back to correct his 1905 mistake, because he had made none.
The history of science is endless and fascinating, but it should not be told in terms of errors and wrong predictions. That approach suggests that science is a progression of correcting errors from the past rather than the acquisition of deeper understanding. Some day decades or more in the future, much of what we believe today of quantum theory and gravitation will be regarded as special cases of a broader, more comprehensive theory. Let us hope that the historians of that day will not reflect on the inexplicable errors of those who paved the way.
