Translation talk:Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity

Information about this edition
Edition:
Source:	Die Naturwissenschaften, Wochenschrift für die fortschritte der Naturwissenschaft, der Medizin und der Technik. 29. November 1918
Contributor(s):
Level of progress:	proofread by one person.
Notes:	Translated from german by Cleonis
Proofreaders:	Harald88

How to correct the footnotes? Here is the corrected footnote 2, for who knows how to do it:

[2] That the tower doesn't fall over is, according to the second representation, due to the fact that it free-falls with the ground and the entire Earth in a gravitational field (which is present during the jerk), while the train is kept from free falling by external forces (braking forces). A free falling body behaves with regard to internal processes as a free floating body, isolated from all external influences. 128.178.153.55 12:59, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

In the current version of the wiki software footnotes are generated automatically. The passage that should become the footnote is placed in the running text, between the following two tags: <ref></ref>. If, as in this case, there are two passages that are between 'ref'-tags, the wiki software automatically enumerates them, and generates the necessary HTML.

All your edits of the article were improvements, thank you for your work. I just have one slight worry. I assume there is already a translation, published in the volume of the Einstein Papers Project that the original 1918 article was published in. I assume that this translation is copyrighted. Can you confirm that your edits did not make the wiki-source translation identical to the Einstein Papers translation? I assume that copying the Einstein Papers translation would constitute copyright infringement. --Cleonis | Talk 13:28, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

Copyright

I think the PD rationale should be argumented. (It's OK in countries with death+50, but... what in the EU: death+70) 132.248.81.29 23:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

typo

There appears to be a typo in the section that reads: "However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1." U2 is in fact not at a higher gravitational potential than U1 during partial process 3, since partial process 3 occurs after the gravitational field has switched, accelerating bodies toward the positive x-direction. Furthermore, if this were true then the K and K' versions of the event would no longer match up, since U2 would run AHEAD of U1 in K', rather than behind, as it does in K. If this is Einstein's error, a footnote should be inserted explaining the situation. If the error is the translator's, I suggest that U1 and U2 be switched in the phrase beginning with "during partial process 3". Or maybe I'm just confused? —unsigned comment by 204.69.190.75 (talk) 23:11, 10 December 2007.

I've checked against the original german text (I have a file with scanned images of the original article) and the translation follows the original. I haven't checked the arithmatics, and I probably won't try to. This article is about ideas. If it would be part of a textbook then the numbers are supposed to add up, but in this case I don't think it's worth the effort to figure out whether 204.69.190.75 is confused or not. --Cleonis | Talk 19:19, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

I did try to check, and interestingly I now feel the same way as 204.69.190.75 does: that in all probability there has been a typo which would be fixed by the interchange that has been proposed by 204.69.190.75.

I've decided not to edit the page. I've tried looking for wikisource guidelines, but there do not seem to be any. I make up a guideline of my own right here and now: if in doubt, stay with the the original to the letter. The purpose of wikisource is to provide access to the source. If the original contains a typo: so be it. --Cleonis | Talk 19:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Is there a scan of the original page available? John Vandenberg 23:07, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Minor Editing of Translation

My minor alterations on 20/11/08 to the text of the translation, highlighted in red, are:

1) Putting end quote on the extensive quotation from Lenard. Quotation marks within quote altered to single quotation marks.

2) The two examples of the word 'principally' (prinzipiell) have been replaced with 'in principle' since the former word can be read as 'chiefly' or 'mainly' and can wrongly imply that Einstein is being evasive or deceitful at this point in the text - whereas the original German precludes this.

3) The more serious retranslation concerns the mutual interaction of the "stars of the universe" and coordinate system K'.

The original reads: "because during the accelerated phases of the coordinate system K' THEY are accelerated RELATIVE TO THAT and THROUGH THAT can induce a gravitational field,"

The relevant German reads: "denn sie sind waehrend der Beschleunigungsphasen des Koordinatensystem K' relativ zu letzterem beschleunigt and koennen dadurch ein Gravitationsfeld induzieren,"

The word "letzterem" means 'the latter (SINGULAR)' i.e. K', allowing the 'they' clearly to be understood as "all the stars of the universe" as opposed to multiple coordinate systems or acceleration phases - both of which could otherwise be read into the text.

PS: I cannot log in because Wiki won't accept my password from before - OZZO