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znnajdlatoday at 8:17 AM1 replyview on HN

The difference is that Einstein didn't literally have someone prompting him towards his result.


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madaxe_againtoday at 8:30 AM

Uh, he did. Marcel Grossmann.

“It was Grossmann who emphasized the importance of a non-Euclidean geometry called Riemannian geometry (also elliptic geometry) to Einstein, which was a necessary step in the development of Einstein's general theory of relativity. Abraham Pais's book on Einstein suggests that Grossmann mentored Einstein in tensor theory as well. Grossmann introduced Einstein to the absolute differential calculus, started by Elwin Bruno Christoffel and fully developed by Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro and Tullio Levi-Civita. Grossmann facilitated Einstein's unique synthesis of mathematical and theoretical physics in what is still today considered the most elegant and powerful theory of gravity: the general theory of relativity.”

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