Einstein and the Gravitational Waves

In 1918 Einstein published the paper ÜBER GRAVITATIONSWELLEN [1] in which, for the first time, the effect of gravitational waves was calculated, resulting in his famous “quadrupole formula ” (QF). Einstein was forced to this publication due to a serious error in his 1916 paper [2], where he had developed the linear approximation (“weak-field”) scheme to solve the field equations of general relativity (GR). In analogy to electrodynamics, where accelerated charges emit electromagnetic waves, the linearized theory creates gravitational waves, popagating with the speed of light in the (background) Minkowski space-time. A major difference: Instead of a dipole moment, now a quadrupole moment is needed. Thus sources of gravitational waves are objects like a “rotating dumbbell”, e. g. realized by a binary star system. As there was no chance for detecting gravitational waves, due to their extreme weakness of the order (vc) 5 the theory advanced slow in the first decades. The existence of gravitational waves was always a matter of controversy. Curiously Einstein himself was not convinced in 1936. In a paper with Nathan Rosen he came to the conclusion, that gravitational waves do not exist! Curiously too is the story of its publication. Einstein’s manuscript, titled DO GRAVITATIONAL WAVES EXIST?, was rejected by the “Physical Review”. In an angry reply he withdrawed the paper, to appear later in the “Journal of the Franklin Institute ” (choosing a less provokin