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We cannot say that Poincaré's relativity is preliminary. In 1898, he states that simultaneity is relative. In 1904 he stated the principle of relativity for electromagnetism during his speech in Saint Louis. His 5 june 1905 paper "Sur la dynamique de l'électron" contains the proof that the Lorentz transformations are a group (in the math sense). So, the theory of special relativity is mature here.
In fact, we know for sure (from the Einstein-Solovine letters) that in 1902 Einstein has read "La science et l'hypothese" (Science and Hypothesis) in which relative time and space are discussed. We have good reason the believe that Einstein has also read Poincaré's 5 june 1905 article: Einstein used to make summaries and translations of articles from other magazines for the "Annalen", one of the journals he got his sources from is the "Comptes rendus" in which Poincaré published.
I believe I read somewhere that Henri Poincaré was the last person to know all mathematics known at the time. Is there any truth to this statement? -- Dissident 16:17, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
He was a universalist, as was David Hilbert. If you go to the next generation, you find that the breadth of someone like Hermann Weyl is perhaps not quite the same thing (though very impressive, actually). John von Neumann too, in a different way. It comes down to defining know, of course. One definition would be 'able to read a mathematical journal like a newspaper'.
Charles Matthews 16:22, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I doubt this statement about Poincare being the last such person. There are some Fields Medal winners that definitely have a profound and broad knowledge of current mathematics. --Chan-Ho Suh 15:20, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
PLEASE WRITE DOWN HOW TO PRONOUNCE HIS NAME!!!!