Talk:Henri Poincaré

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[edit] Toulose's observartions

I deleted the part in Toulouse's characterization where it commented on Poincaré having a brilliant memory. As brilliant as Poincaré was, it seems counter intuitive to what Poincaré has written about himself and it's the first time I've read such claim. Even with the [citation needed], I think it's deeply misleading. Bashi 13:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

It is well-known and cited by several biographers that Poincare could instantly recall ANYTHING he'd ever read. When Henri said his memory was "bad," he apparently meant his ability to remember to do important things like make a note of where he left his keys or wallet last. Kamandi 27 July 2007

[edit] Too much about Einstein?

The page has too much about Einstein, don't you think? As though someone was trying to push a priority dispute. I agree that E = mc^2 has to be explained (and Einstein's different result explaned) but what about the mention of general relativity at the end (it is much better than it was). But there is far too much about a superceded theory of gravity; we still haven't got from Licorne the references for Poincare's gravity theories and only have his paraphrase of Langevin. Licorne never seemed to give a straight answer about what works of Poincare Langevin refered to - they are not in the reference list. Poincare in Science and Method (1908) mentions ONLY a theory of gravity by Lorentz, as though he is ashamed of his own efforts in 1906. If Poincare's gravity theory remains in the page, which we might surmise Poincare wouldn't like, we need just say it is outdated since 1915. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by E4mmacro (talk • contribs) 05:45, March 12, 2006 (UTC)

I definitely agree that, in the scope of Poincare's body of work, and even in comparison to what he achieved before Einstein on Special Relativity, the gravity work is overblown. I don't see it ever mentioned (unlike the growing recognition of his work on SR - which was never really a secret to the experts), while Nordstrom and Lorentz are often mentioned for SR compliant gravity work. I would agree with a stripped down discussion of this, with a single concluding observation that such efforts were supplanted by GR (no real need to even mention Einstein). My rework of the prior GR paragraph was with the philosophy " if this is here, let's make it reflect consensus opinion", but I agree it isn't really needed at all. --Pallen 17:16, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, this is ridiculous. Now that the neo-Nazi is gone, can we get rid of most of it? –Joke 15:53, 14 March 2006 (UTC)
Every now and then I come back to ask to make this article focus on Poincare's contributions in a straightforward way; IOW, I agree. Harald88 01:37, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

This article is a disgrace! There are some very interesting points about his life, but it's all about relativity. I think this was a small part of his career. It seems that the article has been hijacked by physicists and disregards all his advances in mathematics. GeometryJim 10:07, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

The Wikipedia way: don't hesitate to add more about mathematics if you like. Harald88 11:26, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Last Universalist

I was reading through the archives of the talk discussion here and an issue that hasn't been resolved yet is the mention of M. Poincaré as the "last universalist". This title is so vague as to be meaningless. Some give the title to John von Neumann (as was mentioned earlier), and others say that even Carl Gauss wasn't a "true universalist" (whatever that means) and give the title of "last universalist" to Gottfried Leibniz.

So can we refrain from making vague claims like "last universalist" and just call him a polymath? That should be enough of a title for any mathematician. --Wild rabbit 15:59, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

I am wondering if someone could mention at least a few Poincare's decision-failures? Just so that readers can acquire a more balanced view of his interactions in society. For example, this person was particularly short-sighted when it came to assessing his peer's work, i.e. Georg Cantor's (look it up on wikipedia), and even of a particularly brilliant pupil, Louis Bachelier. (Bernstein, 1996, p.199) This way readers are better informed to this man's skills in decision-making, and how his interests in his own success in fields of novel application may have influenced his judgement on research more relevant to the general population. -- mariabrenna

[edit] 3-body problem

Hello

I just corrected an error about the 3-body or n-body problem. Poincaré did not prove that this problem cannot be solved, indeed Sundman found such a solution. Oub 10:43, 15 August 2006 (UTC):

[edit] Asymptotic expansion

The Asymptotic expansion article mentions that it is also called a Poincaré expansion. I would like to see a mention about his contribution to Asymptotic expansions. Remi Arntzen 00:46, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What religious belief did Henri Poincare have?

From his writings I would say he was agnostic or deist but cannot find a source to confirm this. Does anyone know of one? The scientist infobox has a field for religion but its been left blank. Lumos3 13:31, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

If his religion is not known (or hard to research), it's not notable. Just because this #@!&$ infobox has a field for religion doesn't imply the religious beliefs or non-beliefs of scientists must be mentioned. --Pjacobi 13:33, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Work on relativity

In line with the statement from the Mathematics Wiki project ( see top of this page) I intend to remove the majority of the section Work on relativity , which has become overlong and disproportionate, to a sepeate article entitled Henri Poincaré and relativity. I will leave a synopsis here. Any comments? Lumos3 15:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The relativity section is not that long given its importance. Why not just build up the mathematics sections more instead. 67.8.115.243 03:14, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
His contributions to physics are as improtant as his contributions to mathematics. However, there is a matter of maximal article length. If the mathematics sections are build up more, the article will become too long. It is OK to split a section off to its own page as long as it is briefly summarized with a clear link to the spinned off article, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Content_forking#Article_spinouts_-_.22Summary_style.22_articles
Harald88 17:18, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
There is no problem of maximal article length. Einstein's article is far longer, and that does not seem to be a problem at all ! Just build up Poincaré's math section a bit, there's plenty of room. 67.8.115.243 21:30, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Height

Poincare seems to have been very short and lightly built. Exact information is hard to find. The photograph in the main article

of Poincare and Marie Curie suggests that he was shorter than she was.

[edit] Shortcomings section

This section could be a personal essay. Please supply citations to the published authors who say these things. Without them it will be deleted. Lumos3 22:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you read the citation on the page? E.g., Bernstein?

I agree with the above comment. I think this should be rewritten or retitled. The shortcomings you cite seem to be disagreements and differences of opinion. Such instances are common, but do they deserve the attention which you give to them? Cantor's work was, and still is, controversial. Is it a shortcoming of Poincare to disagree with his conclusions? I don't think so. It reflects a philosophical difference, not a shortcoming.

I agree. Since it is not a shortcomming but a counter-position. It is not a shortcoming of Poincare, instead it is a deliberate criticism that he levels against people like Cantor. Such criticism is his primary thesis, and what he warned against: the quantification of such things as economic models. (His 19th century language and heridity make the language of his criticism overly gentlemanly rather than as pointed as it needed to be for later generations.) And he was not alone in such criticism, and is not alone in this criticism today. The fact that such methods are widely used, or even that such methods have been awarded Nobel status, has little to do witht he fact that they are in fact, almost entirely erroneous in practice, incapable of prediction, and descriptive of past activity rather than of future performance. The popularity of these methods is a function of the increasing size of government and monetarism (something that requires too long an explanation for this forum) and is not in fact, a descriptoin of what people actually do in economic cooperation. Popularity is a measure of religious devotion. Not a measure of it's performance. Had Hayek bothered to debunk Keynes, an effort he did not expend, simply because he considered it an obvious error(an error in prediction on his part), since none of the originators of economic thought that it was a quantitative rather than qualitative science, we would be studying poincare, rather than keynes. Ergo, the section should be entitled "criticisms", it should list a citation, and should include some counter argument such as I state above, since it is only a criticsm, not a shortcoming, and in fact, it is demonstrable, perhaps overwhelmingly so, that such criticisms have a higher density of false content than does Poincare's position. -Curt Doolittle 11/24/07 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.195.135 (talk) 20:20, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Serious Omission? No mention of Poincare's 1904 Paper On The Principle Of Relativity

I could not find any mention of 1904 paper on principle of relativity. If there I apologise, but it seems to me this is a critical step forward in the history of special relativity and I could not easily find it. Is it there?71.251.178.128 16:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean Lorentz's paper of 1904 or Poincare's paper of 1905, both are mentioned in the relativity section. Lumos3 17:06, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

This would be the St Louis address.71.251.178.128 21:55, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Another Serious Omission - No mention of Poincares Importance In The Philosophy Of Science

There does not appear in this article an appreciation of the importance of Poincare's publications in the philosophy of science. In that field, his three volumes The Value Of Science. are viewed as important in the foundation of the philosophy of science. This needs to be included in the article. Poincare's scientific conventionalism is an important contribution to this field.Electrodynamicist 14:15, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] British English

I contend that the English spelling used in this article should be British English since Poincare was French and British English spelling is the form used throughout the modern EU of which France is a part. Lumos3 08:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Not sure if this is still true; but it certainly is true for the time of Poincare, so I agree. Harald88 18:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Invariance

without question Invariance completed the formulation, read Einstein's 1905 article.

[edit] Boltzmann

I have read somewhere that Poincaré was the biggest responsible for the initial refutation of the Boltzmann theories. This refutation would be connected to the Poincaré recurrence theorem.

Boltzmann died just a few years before Poincaré. Does anybody know if he heard of his suicide, and gave any comments? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nwerneck (talk • contribs) 17:15, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Inertia of Energy section is unsourced

The second paragraph of the 'Inertia of Energy' section is unsourced and its conclusion is simply 'original research' by whomever wrote it. Poincaré clearly stated that energy does indeed have an 'effective mass', which is indeed not real mass. Poincaré is therefore correct here that the usual interpretation of Newton's law does appear to be violated. The second paragraph should therefore be amended, it is incorrect and simply 'original research' by someone who is misconstruing Poincaré's words. I took the liberty of amending it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.186.213.96 (talk)

I took the liberty of rolling back your edits. They are neither uncontroversial nor backed by sources. Please cite sources, and distinguish between what Poincaré thought and what current physics thinks; your edits make it sound as if you draw a distinction in current fact between "real" and "effective" mass, not just in Poincaré's writings - current thinking is that there is no such distinction. --Alvestrand (talk) 05:00, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
This IP was previously used by User:Licorne. I'm assuming it still is. Banned. --Alvestrand (talk) 05:09, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
You are wrong. Every physicist in the world knows that there is 'real' mass and 'apparent' or 'effective' mass, such as in the well known Pound-Rebke experiment. Whoever wrote this section is trying to make it look like Poincare didn't understand this. Furthermore, Einstein's derivation of E=mc2 was erroneous and solved nothing at all, as H.E.Ives published in his famous paper in the 1950's. So the section needs be rewritten by a real physicist, not a layman.67.78.143.226 (talk) 18:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
No. Read the papers of Popper, Holton, Miller, Janssen and most importantly Darrigol (for the inertia of energy). The claims of Ives, Whittaker, Keswani etc. were debunked by those authors.--D.H (talk) 20:47, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
Licorne, please don't use the library for your POV-pushing. It hurts other people. --Alvestrand (talk) 20:52, 4 June 2008 (UTC)