Einstein's Lost Battles and Neglected Achievements

TL;DR

This paper reviews Einstein's unfulfilled scientific pursuits and highlights overlooked contributions, providing a broader philosophical context and discussing related controversies.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of Einstein's failures and neglected achievements, emphasizing their significance in the history and philosophy of physics.

Findings

Einstein's deterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics was unsuccessful.

His formulation of a unified theory remains incomplete.

Some of Einstein's ideas, like antiparticles, were undervalued initially.

Abstract

We analyze some of Einstein's failures to accomplish tasks which he posed to himself, notably deterministic interpretation of Quantum mechanics and formulation of the Unified theory of physical interactions, putting them into broader ontological and epistemological context. We highlight, on the other hand, a number of his contributions that have been unjustly neglected by the physical community, like the semiclassical quantization principle and the concept of antiparticle. Finally, we mention briefly three issues, which are related to Einstein, but are subject to controversy.