The Collective Construction of Scientific Memory: The Einstein-Poincaré Connection and its Discontents, 1905–2005

Voigt transformations in retrospect: missed opportunities?

“…However, in retrospective reading of really deep papers, and there is no doubt that Poincaré's relativity papers are really very deep, the reader can see much more than it was possible to see by contemporaries, including the author, who were bound by concrete historical context and prejudices of those days. If we inspect the physical literature of the founding period of relativity (1905)(1906)(1907)(1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917)(1918), we will clearly see that the scientific community never hesitated to give Einstein a due credit, and there was no such a thing as Poincaré's version of relativity "accessible and perceived as such by physicists of the times" [35]. It is a historical fact that the relativistic revolution, as seen in the contemporary physical literature of those days, rightly or wrongly is dominated by only one name, the Einstein's papers playing the major role, while Poincaré's ones being left virtually unnoticed [35].…”

“…If we inspect the physical literature of the founding period of relativity (1905)(1906)(1907)(1908)(1909)(1910)(1911)(1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917)(1918), we will clearly see that the scientific community never hesitated to give Einstein a due credit, and there was no such a thing as Poincaré's version of relativity "accessible and perceived as such by physicists of the times" [35]. It is a historical fact that the relativistic revolution, as seen in the contemporary physical literature of those days, rightly or wrongly is dominated by only one name, the Einstein's papers playing the major role, while Poincaré's ones being left virtually unnoticed [35]. The importance of these papers was recognized only later.…”

“…However, these efforts were insufficient. As the citation record shows [35], Poincaré's papers [24,25] were rarely cited during the founding period of relativity 1905-1912 and thus had virtually no effect on the development of special relativity (in this time period Einstein's paper [9] was cited about five times more frequently than Poincaré's papers [24,25]).…”

A comparison between qualitative and quantitative histories: the example of the efficient market hypothesis

“…In this example, citation analysis appears as a useful method of discovery. In the same vein, Gingras (2008) used a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis to clarify the contributions of Lorentz, Einstein and Poincaré about relativity theory and to solve the "mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré connection". A quantitative analysis can clearly contribute to improve qualitative interpretations in order to provide better historiographies of economics.…”

L’historien dans la Cité : l’objectivation contre l’instrumentalisation

“…C'est plutôt le Français Henri Poincaré qui l'a décou-verte, le premier l'ayant au mieux plagié… Autres acteurs importants dans cette histoire : les mathématiciens. Convaincus de la supériorité de leur discipline, certains se mêlent du débat en affirmant que la relativité restreinte est également le fait d'un mathématicien (Poincaré), tout comme 22 . Que faut-il conclure de cette histoire ?…”