Talk:Relativity priority dispute

Context?

It seems to me that this article omits or badly neglects a couple of important contextual factors: the human relationships (or lack thereof) between the individuals involved, and their opinions on the topic. Perhaps they were all good friends, and none of them cared about the topic of this article. Perhaps they were bitter rivals making jealous accusations, and they would be jumping in to correct the record. Perhaps no personal relationships existed between them. Whatever the case may be, I think this stuff ought to be a main point, if not THE main point, of the article, taking up a large chunk of the lead section; otherwise it's difficult to determine why anyone would be interested in it. (The science remains the same regardless of who gets credit, so figuring out "who was the first to say what" seems pointlessly trivial without the human element.) In short: Please very prominently explain who has an interest in getting this issue cleared up, because currently the answer appears to be "nobody, it's not worth reading". TooManyFingers (talk) 16:09, 16 August 2022 (UTC)

Relativity is considered one of the great advances of science, and the story is often told to make various points. There is a lot of interest in getting the story right. Roger (talk) 04:14, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

I recognize the importance of the advance. I'm arguing that until the context I described is provided, the story you refer to will remain very far from being right. When an out-of-order sequence of meaningless events is finally put into the correct order, the result is still meaningless. The discoveries and statements about relativity are meaningful in themselves of course, but telling the story of how they came about has very little to do with merely putting them into chronological order, and much more to do with the personal/professional/social/political interactions that led to them or influenced them. Those interactions (or independent actions, as the case may be) ARE the story; getting the sequence right is a relatively minor editing chore, not a final goal. TooManyFingers (talk) 16:52, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

In other words: The story is the explanation of WHY the events happened the way they did. If you focus only on WHEN they happened, the result is a bus timetable, not a story. TooManyFingers (talk) 17:16, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Darrigol missing

There should be a section based on

• Darrigol, O. (2004). The mystery of the Einstein–Poincaré connection. Isis, 95(4), 614-626.

The section on Harvey R. Brown (2005) is far too long and full of quotes instead of summary. Johnjbarton (talk) 04:12, 12 November 2025 (UTC)