260 RELATIVITY, THE GENERAL THEORYNovember 15: E. to H. 'The indications on your postcards lead to the greatest
expectations.' Apologizes for his inability to attend the lecture, since he is overtired
and bothered by stomach pains. Asks for a copy of the proofs of Hilbert's paper
[E57].
November 18: E. to H. Apparently Einstein has received a copy of Hilbert's
work. 'The system [of equations] given by you agrees—as far as I can see—
exactly with what I found in recent weeks and submitted to the Academy' [E58].
November 19: H. to E. Congratulates him for having mastered the perihelion
problem. 'If I could calculate as quickly as you, then the electron would have to
capitulate in the face of my equations and at the same time the hydrogen atom
would have to offer its excuses for the fact that it does not radiate' [H9]. Here, on
the day before Hilbert submitted his November 20 paper, the known November
correspondence between the two men ends.Let us come back to Einstein's paper of November 18. It was written at a time
in which (by his own admission) he was beside himself about his perihelion dis-
covery (formally announced that same day), very tired, unwell, and still at work
on the November 25 paper. It seems most implausible to me that he would have
been in a frame of mind to absorb the content of the technically difficult paper
Hilbert had sent him on November 18. More than a year later, Felix Klein wrote
that he found the equations in that paper so complicated that he had not checked
them [K9]. It is true that Hilbert's paper contains the trace term which Einstein
had yet to introduce.* But Einstein's method for doing so was, as mentioned ear-
lier, the adaptation of a trick he had already used in his paper of November 4.
Thus it seems that one should not attach much significance either to Einstein's
agreeing with Hilbert 'as far as I can see' or to Hilbert's agreeing with Einstein
'as it seems to me' [H4]. I rather subscribe to Klein's opinion that the two men
'talked past each other, which is not rare among simultaneously productive math-
ematicians' [K10]. (I leave aside the characterization of Einstein as a mathema-
tician, which he never was nor pretended to be.) I again agree with Klein 'that
there can be no question of priority, since both authors pursued entirely different
trains of thought to such an extent that the compatibility of the results did not at
once seem assured' [Kll]. I do believe that Einstein was the sole creator of the
physical theory of general relativity and that both he and Hilbert should be cred-
ited for the discovery of the fundamental equation (Eq. 14.15).
I am not sure that the two protagonists would have agreed.
Something happened between these two men between November 20 and
December 20, when Einstein wrote to Hilbert, 'There has been a certain pique
between us, the causes of which I do not wish to analyze. I have struggled with
complete success against a feeling of bitterness connected with that. I think of you
once again with untroubled friendliness and ask you to try to do the same regard-
"Hilbert's Tf, has a nonvanishing trace since his L refers to the Mie theory. I find it hard to believe
that Einstein went as far as thinking that Hilbert's Triad to vanish [E59].