On The Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute

I had recently shown (Z. Naturforsch. 59a, 715 (2004)), the claim by Corry, Renn and Stachel (SCIENCE 278, 1270 (1997)), that Hilbert did not anticipate Einstein in deriving the gravitational field equations of general relativity is of no probative value because their conclusion is based on a set of printer's proofs from which 1/3 of a sheet, with both sides missing, has been cut off, a fact not mentioned in their paper. It has long been known that Hilbert had obtained these equations before Einstein. Renn is quoted in the Washington Post of November 14, 1997, with the statement: ``I had personally come to the conclusion that Einstein plagiarized Hilbert.'' As admitted by Corry, Renn and Stachel the cut-off part contained the Ricci invariant which enters Hilbert's variational principle. His field equations and the variational principle from which they follow, are still in the proofs, but not his abbreviation for the variational derivative, containing the trace term missing in all of Einstein's previous papers. My findings are cited by C. J. Bjerknes in: ``Anticipations of Einstein''. Logunov, Mestvirishvili, and Petrov (U.F. Nauk 174,663 (2004)), come to the same conclusion.