Stephen wrote:

On Sun, 10 Aug 2003, shuba wrote:

Stephen wrote:

10 points to the first person to identify the author of these
words, and 2 points for the date they were published.

"In this connection it is of importance to note that
when we exclude certain possibilities that would give
rise to still greater intricacy, the form of comparison
used by Einstein to present the theory is the only
possible one; the principle of the freedom of choice in
co-ordinates was the only one by which he needed to
allow himself to be guided. Although thus there was no
special effort made to reach a connection with the
theory of Newton, it was evident, fortunately, at the
end of the experiment that the connection existed."

I see Randy Gerl beat me to a guess of Hermann Weyl. The
sentence structure still has that German feel to me, so I'll
go with Karl Schwarzschild, 1916.

That's interesting, but no. Lots of good tries this evening.

In addition to being very prominent, well known in the field, and
not being from our recent decades, one more hint: The author and
Einstein had the utmost respect for each other's abilities.

Okay then, I'll cross a border. Hendrik Lorentz, 1923.