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[i]In a letter to Sommerfeld on 28 November 1915 Einstein described how he had progressed from the Entwurf theory to general relativity: In the last month I had one of the most stimulating, exhausting times of my life, and also one of the most successful... For I realized that my existing gravitational field equations [the Entwurf theory of 1913] were entirely untenable! The following indications led to this: [list=1][*]I proved that the gravitational field on a uniformly rotating system does not satisfy the field equations. [*]The motion of Mercury's perihelion came to 18" rather than 45" per century. [*]The covariance considerations in my paper of last year do not yield the Hamiltonian function H. When it is properly generalized, it permits an arbitrary H. From this it was demonstrated that covariance with respect to "adapted" coordinate systems was a flop.[/list] Once every last bit of confidence in the result and the method of the earlier theories had given way, I saw clearly that it was only through a link with general covariance theory, i.e., with Riemann's covariant, that a satisfactory solution could be found. Unfortunately, I have immortalized the final errors in this struggle in the Academy contributions... The final result is as follows: The gravitational field equations are generally covariant.[/i]
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