25 NOVEMBER 2000, Page 36

LETTERS Relative dates

From Mr Charles Patak Sir: Contrary to Steve King (Books, 4 November), Henri Poincare did not 'antici- pate' Einstein's special theory of relativity; he invented it. Neither did his research appear in print three weeks after Einstein's seminal 1905 paper. In fact, Einstein's paper was submitted on 30 June and published two months later. On the other hand, a four- page summary of Poincare's paper was sub- mitted on 5 June and published four days later, while a longer version of the paper was submitted on 23 July and published only in 1906. However, as Poincare had written about relativity from 1895 onwards, his pri- ority does not depend solely on one paper. Charles Patak

Melbourne, Australia