[pnin]

Neither Poincare nor Lorentz are relevant to the genesis of General Relativity. The only relevant priority dispute is whether Einstein or Hilbert wrote down the correct field equations first. This was after a long correspondence between the two, in which Einstein explained his ideas -- there is no dispute that Einstein "invented" General Relativity. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_relativity_priority_di...

[BenoitP]

> Neither Poincare nor Lorentz are relevant to the genesis of General Relativity

Well, that's just plain wrong. From the horse's mouth:

> As we know, this is connected with the relativity of the concepts of "simultaneity" and "shape of moving bodies." To fill this gap, I introduced the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light, which I borrowed from H. A. Lorentz's theory of the stationary luminiferous ether, and which, like the principle of relativity, contains a physical assumption that seemed to be justified only by the relevant experiments

More from here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute

[mr_mitm]

This quote is about special relativity.

[BenoitP]

Which is the source for General Relativity, which suffered too from an attribution dispute with Hilbert's works.

My point being: science doesn't happen in a vacuum, and is not totally ordered

[mr_mitm]

>science doesn't happen in a vacuum

Yes, everybody agrees, but you specifically responded to the statement that Poincaré and Lorentz had nothing to do with GR. You said that statement was wrong, but it looks more like you confused SR and GR, which are two entirely different beasts.

[BenoitP]

Well the comment by pnin made it about GR, when the parent by boringuser2 was about the general contributions to relativity, both SR and GR. I believe "general theory of relativity" to be different than "general relativity" here, the former encompassing both SR and GR. Maybe that's where our misunderstanding comes from. Also, if you believe that GR has absolutely nothing to do with SR, then no Lorentz has no relevance to the genesis of General Relativity.

Anyway I don't believe we're having a discussion worth having here.

[simpletone]

> there is no dispute that Einstein "invented" General Relativity.

Just like there is no dispute Newton invented calculus, gutenburg invented the printing press or columbus discovered the americas...