Another Thread On Einstein's Pens

March 17, 2018

You are right about SR (special relativity theory) being published in 1905 but he was awarded the Nobel prize for the explanation of the photoelectric effect, also published in 1905.

Yes, you are right: that's the one I mis-referred to as the one on black body emission (faulty memory, but they are related: Einstein worked on Plank's explanation for black body radiation -quanta, to explain the photoelectric effect).

The period max dog refers to at least overlaps the development of GR (general relativity theory) with the decisive paper published in 1915. And max dog did not distinguish between special or general relativity.

Yes, I also thought about that, but 1908-1915 is not 1913-1921, that's why I said "a bit misplaced". He is not that wrong, though, as it's fame that Einstein saved, if not the theory itself at least its popularity, by a hair's breadth when he uncovered a mistake on his calculus just before Sir Arthur Eddington came back with the results of 1919 eclipse that showed the gravitational lense effect, predicted by GR. Were the mistake discovered after the fact, people would have said he was matching his theory to the observations instead of the other way around. To add more fun to the anecdote, later studies doubted the significance of Eddington's observations since his measures were within their rounding error.

Anyway, I can work out my own equations with any of my Kawecos and still I won't get the Nobel prize. What does the pen matter?

Well, Kaweko is not what it used to be... I always say vintage pens are much better than modern ones. Now you know why!

March 17, 2018

I think we are d'accord on the physics. Actually, David Hilbert got the math right first and published it just before Einstein as far as I know. But this is generally ignored, and rightly so, because the ideas were all Einstein's.

My latest Kaweco is from the 60s, the earliest from the 30s. It still won't help for the Nobel prize. I can't judge how the modern "Kawecos" are but I have a few students who like them. My vintage ones are very good to excellent. This much off topics regarding Einstein's pens. Actually, I wonder whether he really cared in a time when fountain pens were an everyday's necessity for people like him. I could imagine that he didn't give a damn as long as that thing wrote properly. Just look at his haircut and his clothes.