2 00 5 Einstein , Hilbert and Equations of Gravitation

• The history of the equations of gravitational field is of particular interest because they are related to two famous names: Albert Einstein and David Hilbert, and because the circumstances of their invention bear sometimes almost detective character. One of the early references is the book " Einstein, Hilbert and the Theory of Gravitation " by a renowned historian of science J. Mehra [1], where the great role of Hilbert was showed very clear. Such view was strengthened in 1978 when the correspondence between Einstein and Hilbert was published, from which followed that Hilbert informed Einstein on the gravitational field equations in a letter before his formal publication [2]. The opinion, shared by many physicists, was that it was Hilbert who possessed an undoubtful priority [3]. • However, in 1997 a new sensation shaked just established opinion: the authors of a short article in " Science " [4] argued on the basis of the first proofs of the Hilbert paper on the gravita-tional equations, digged up from the Hilbert archive, that Hilbert had no correct, generally covariant equation before Einstein. Moreover, the authors of [4] transparently alluded that Hilbert " borrowed " some decisive formulae from Einstein! And even that Hilbert tried to hide such an appropriation with help of deliberately wrong dating of his article. Such an accusation would seriously undermine the image of David Hilbert from the ethical side, and was in a sharp contrast to all what was known about his personality. • On the other hand the very personality of Einstein is by no means irreproachable. Take, for instance, the case of the relativity theory. So, counter-reaction to paper [4] followed. One of the first was the book by C.J. Bjerknes [5], well documented and with a rich bibliography, in which the conclusions of paper [4] were contested. This was based on the correspondence between Einstein and Hilbert and an important fact that the proofs of Hilbert's paper — the main evidence of the authors of [4] against Hilbert — were mutilated with some part of proofs cutted off. This fact was mentioned for the first time, but without a due evaluation, in Ref. [6]. In book [5] it was mentioned that F. Winterberg assumed that the explicit form of the gravitational field could be fairly contained in the cutted off parts of the proofs. This seriously undermined the main argument of the authors [4] against …