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by dchftcs 243 days ago
Einstein published his relativity papers originally in German.
1 comments

German was the lingua franca of physics at the time, so to speak.

Starting in the 1930s, though, that tradition began to change... for reasons that I'm sure won't ever apply to American English. Nosirree, Bob, we're special. Great, even.

A relevant quote from David Hilbert:

"Mathematics in Göttingen?" Hilbert repiled. "There is really none any more."

https://hsm.stackexchange.com/questions/2486/source-for-hilb...

> German was the lingua franca

A finer expression of the matter cannot be made.

The only constant is constant change.
And even that's not constant sometimes.