PubMed Central: Lalli 2016 on H. P. Robertson's refereeing (2026-10-07)

Query (Google): Ives "Physical Significance of Birkhoff's Gravitational Equations". Page: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4856100/ (open access). Roberto Lalli, "'Dirty work', but someone has to do it: Howard P. Robertson and the refereeing practices of Physical Review in the 1930s", Notes Rec. R. Soc. 70(2):151-174 (2016), doi:10.1098/rsnr.2015.0022. PDF download from royalsocietypublishing.org refused scripted access; text read in Chrome.

Found [web]: - H. P. Robertson was the main Physical Review referee for relativity papers from 1930 through the 1940s; Lalli argues referees then had "enormous power in promoting their own agendas". - On Ives: Robertson's referee report on Ives's "The Physical Significance of Birkhoff's Gravitational Equations" (ca. March 1947; Robertson Papers, Caltech Archives 10024-MS, per the Google snippet of note 58) "ironically emphasized that 'the insistence on sticking to "Lorentzian" instead of the more appropriate "Minkowski" forces [was] a bit (ca. 40 yrs) out of date.'" Lalli describes Ives as "the highly respected industrial physicist and disbeliever of relativity". The paper was nevertheless published (Phys. Rev. 72:229-232, 1947, per APS listing). - Lalli also documents Robertson's criterion that an author "of good scientific standing ... has more right to be heard than any single referee has to throttle", and Fellows of the APS "having the right to be heard".

Bearing: historical record of how Ives's gravitation work (claim 4) was received at review. Interested party: Robertson, the same person who wrote the relativity assessment in Ives's 1956 NAS memoir (claims 2-3), so the memoir's judgement comes from Ives's referee and critic. That stake should be stated wherever the memoir's verdict is quoted.