I\'ve come across this quote attributed to Misner, Thorne & Wheeler from their b

Question

I've come across this quote attributed to Misner, Thorne & Wheeler from their book, Gravitation:

Mathematics was not sufficiently refined in 1917 to cleave apart the demands for "no prior geometry" and for a geometric, coordinate-independent formulation of physics. Einstein described both demands by a single phrase, "general covariance." The "no prior geometry" demand actually fathered general relativity, but by doing so anonymously, disguised as "general covariance", it also fathered half a century of confusion.

What was the confusion?

Explanation / Answer

You ask about the history. Perhaps the easiest answer is to refer you to the long reference in Wikipedia, which will give you more than fifty pages of explanation:
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/papers/decades_re-set.pdf
But you probably already knew about that.

One short answer is that

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse I
• Subjects

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.