>>11913103>reductio ad einstein.No, Lorentz, Poincaré, Hilbert did not simply provide the mathematical tools that were needed for the formulation of special and general relativity. Studying the works of Poincaré and Lorentz, you will repeatedly find the exact same formulas popping up that now relate to special relativity. Of course, one can argue that both Lorentz and Poincaré have failed to see the bigger picture. In fact, both people did see the bigger picture but failed to move from a purely theoretical framework. What did Einstein do? He used special relativity to explain mercury's orbit. Connecting a theoretical framework with something that could be empirically tested.
It's similar for Hilbert. Hilbert was in fact very much interested in physics, especially mathematical physics. He did, based on the previous work on special relativity, formulate a generalized version of relativity. In fact, the Einstein field equations etc. can all be derived from Hilbert's own formulas. Hilbert simply did not formulate them explicitedly.
