What if Einstien never was born?

[Karinthos]

Honesly wat would happen to the world if Einstien was never born, would that mean the end of the world as we know it? It would mean that there would be a world in which the Germans have a nucleur bomb and that famous equation would not exist. So would it in a term "fuck up" the world? or have a positive affect on the world?

[Karinthos]

LOL wrong place! ment after 1900s

[Archdevil]

He was born before 1900, so you're right.

[narris]

Well, technically the Germans would not be able to create an atom bomb without the theory of relativity, and without Einstein, that theory would probabbly never have surfaced. Well, it probabbly would have eventually, but mabye not in time for the war.

[Rockingham]

Originally Posted by narris

Well, technically the Germans would not be able to create an atom bomb without the theory of relativity, and without Einstein, that theory would probabbly never have surfaced. Well, it probabbly would have eventually, but mabye not in time for the war.

This isn't a DBWI.

[David S Poepoe]

I don't think you need the theory of relativity in order to build an atomic bomb or even hypothesize a chain reaction.

[the_lyniezian]

Certainly relativity would not have been discovered so soon- although perhaps given the work of Lorentz (whose transforms are an integral part of relavivity) it probably would be a matter of time. Quantum theory would also be considerably set back, given Einsteins pioneering work in using it to exlain the photoelectric effect. Nuclear fission would have still been discovered experimentally, and could lead to the theroetical formulation of the mass-energy relationship (the famous E=mc^2) by another route. Maybe the significance of the speed of light (c) would be seen as no more than a curious anomaly.

[the_lyniezian]

In fact the c squared term would probably just be an apparently meaningless constant (like say Planck's constant) equivalent dimensionally to the square of speed, but it's significance would not be noticed without relativity theory (cue some bright spark deriving it by relativity later on!)

[danielb1]

Lorentz and especially Poincare were already poking around Special Relativity. It would have been discovered, probably by Poincare, by no later than 1910 or so. In fact m = E/c^2 was proposed by Poincare in 1900...

General Relativity, OTOH, may have been delayed for decades. Even Einstein had some difficulty with it...

[Jasen777]

Alot of bad AH has to find a different hero.