Nobel Prize in Physics for Relativity?

[Deepak K Kapur]

Why didn't Einstein get Nobel Prize for ' Relativity'

Has anyone else been awarded Nobel Prize for 'Relativity'?

 

[Orodruin]

Einstein received the Nobel prize for "his contributions to theoretical physics, in particular the photoelectric effect". Supposedly this included relativity, but the Nobel committee did not spell this out. Likely because some members had reservations about this.

 

[f95toli]

One possible reason was that there is in unofficial "rule" that you can not get the prize for theories that have not been very firmly confirmed by experiments. The SR was sort of confirmed early on (although I as far as I understand the early measurements were not -in reality- actually conclusive) but I don't think GR was really tested during his lifetime.
Hence. I guess they thought that the prize he had already been awarded "covered" SR as well as the photoelectric effect (as well as his contributions to statistical physics and thermodynamics)

 

[Astronuc]

The SR was sort of confirmed early on (although I as far as I understand the early measurements were not -in reality- actually conclusive) but I don't think GR was really tested during his lifetime.

Some aspects of GR had been tested. According the following Wikipedia article, tests of sufficient precision were performed beginning in 1959, after Einstein had died (1955).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity

At its introduction in 1915, the general theory of relativity did not have a solid empirical foundation. It was known that it correctly accounted for the "anomalous" precession of the perihelion of Mercury and on philosophical grounds it was considered satisfying that it was able to unify Newton's law of universal gravitation with special relativity. That light appeared to bend in gravitational fields in line with the predictions of general relativity was found in 1919 but it was not until a program of precision tests was started in 1959 that the various predictions of general relativity were tested to any further degree of accuracy in the weak gravitational field limit, severely limiting possible deviations from the theory. Beginning in 1974, Hulse, Taylor and others have studied the behaviour of binary pulsars experiencing much stronger gravitational fields than those found in the Solar System. Both in the weak field limit (as in the Solar System) and with the stronger fields present in systems of binary pulsars the predictions of general relativity have been extremely well tested locally.

in 1919, Einstein wrote a letter to The Times of London in which he thanked "English colleagues for their interest in understanding and testing his work."
http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/pdf/eng/EDU_Einstein_ENGLISH.pdf

 

[Deepak K Kapur]

I think no other scientist has been awarded Nobel in the field of relativity.

Do Nobel award givers still have some reservations about relativity or something political is going on?

 

[Astronuc]

I think no other scientist has been awarded Nobel in the field of relativity.

Do Nobel award givers still have some reservations about relativity or something political is going on?

Others have answered that Einstein was awarded a Nobel Prize for his contributions in physics. Ostensibly, that included Special Relativity. See the prize announcement below. Einstein's services included his theories of Special Relativity and General Relativity.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1921 was awarded to Albert Einstein "for his services to Theoretical Physics, and especially for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect".

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/

However, the subject of relativity seems to have been minimized in the award speech.

Presentation Speech by Professor S. Arrhenius, Chairman of the Nobel Committee for Physics of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, on December 10, 1922.

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen.

There is probably no physicist living today whose name has become so widely known as that of Albert Einstein. Most discussion centres on his theory of relativity. This pertains essentially to epistemology and has therefore been the subject of lively debate in philosophical circles. It will be no secret that the famous philosopher Bergson in Paris has challenged this theory, while other philosophers have acclaimed it wholeheartedly. The theory in question also has astrophysical implications which are being rigorously examined at the present time.

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/press.html

Why does one think that Einstein or anyone else should be awarded a Nobel Prize for Relativity?

The Nobel Prize is not awarded posthumously. If any physicist was to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics, specifically for Relativity, then it would have been Einstein. So no living physicist will be awarded a Nobel Prize specifically for 'Relativity'.

Einstein gave his Nobel Lecture on the Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity

Lecture delivered to the Nordic Assembly of Naturalists at Gothenburg, July 11, 1923

Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1921/einstein-lecture.html

 

[atyy]

I think no other scientist has been awarded Nobel in the field of relativity.

Do Nobel award givers still have some reservations about relativity or something political is going on?

Relativity has been so long accepted, that one doesn't get prizes for relativity per se, rather some specific advances in which relativity is assumed to be correct.

Many of the prizes have been for relativistic quantum field theory, including those to Tomonaga, Feynman and Schwinger; Glashow, Salam and Weinberg; 't Hooft and Veltman; Gross, Politzer and Wilczek.

Prizes in general relativity include those to Taylor and Hulse; Perlmutter, Riess and Schmidt.