Steve came up with this fantastic idea to read some Einstein this summer and talk about relativity—that enormously interesting idea which, along with the quantum mechanics of the ensuing decades, shaped what has come to be known as the century of physics. But he followed that great idea up with a rather dumb one: outsourcing the implementation of the project to me. It has sat as a task on my iGoogle todo list for a couple of weeks with no action on my part. Sorry for dropping the ball.
But now that Steve is back from vacation (the pictures were great, by the way), and Dave should be back from Maine this weekend, and I’m still where I always am, it might be a good time to turn our attention back to Dr. Einstein. As they say, there’s no time like the present.
If you’ve forgotten, Steve provided these great links to the 1920 English translation of Einstein’s 1916 book Relativity: The Special and the General Theory: MS Word format, MP3 files, or Podcast. Or you could go to your local library.
Einstein wrote of this book in 1916 that "the present book is intended, as far as possible, to give an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.... In the interest of clearness, it appeared to me inevitable that I should repeat myself frequently, without paying the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation. I adhered scrupulously to the precept of that brilliant theoretical physicist L. Boltzmann, according to whom matters of elegance ought to be left to the tailor and to the cobbler."
For those who are interested—and several of us have expressed some interest in this endeavor—perhaps we could spend two weeks or so on part one of the book, which encompasses the special theory from 1905, before moving on to the more comprehensive general theory that Einstein finished in 1916. Please post comments, questions, reactions, connections to other things you know in science and/or culture and history. I'll leave it to you whether we want to make observations as separate posts with comments in response, or a big, long comments thread. I don’t want to make this really formal, but I also know from experience that without some sort of framework this discussion won’t have the traction it needs. So start reading, and we’ll talk more over the next couple of weeks about Herr Einstein and his world-changing theories.
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A brief quotation to start off the discussion from David Lindley’s very readable overview of these matters: Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science (New York: Doubleday, 2007).
“In devising relativity, Einstein reinvented space and time. His starting point had been to inquire closely into the meaning of simultaneity. In Newtonian mechanics, time was absolute. If two events happened in different places at the same time, then their simultaneous occurrence was an objective fact, an indisputable datum. But Einstein had the wit to ask how observers of these two events could know that they happened at the same time. They would have to synchronize their watches, as characters in war movies used to say. That meant exchanging signals—by flashes of light, by talking on the radio. But these signals travel, at most, at the speed of light, and by scrupulously following how different observers would in practice establish the times and locations of events, Einstein showed that in general they could not agree on simultaneity. Two events that happened, according to one observer, at the same time would be seen by another as happening one after the other” (131-32).
Worldview-changing stuff! I love it.
No such thing as absolute time?? Wow! Instead, it's the speed of light in a vacuum that's absolute? Bang! Super-dimensionally curved space? Pow! Energy actually EQUALS matter times the speed of light squared? What the!
And to think, until I took that "Ideas of Modern Science" class with Adam, I used to just always think of the universe as a bunch of tiny billiard balls boringly attracting and bouncing off each other.
BTW, I've listened to the book, and now I'd like to go back and read it, if for nothing else than to see the diagrams.
also btw, I'm going to America tomorrow, and I'm going to be there for a month. I'd like to meet with you guys
come to VT mid or late August, we totally have a place for you that you will enjoy. A whole bedroom to yourself too.
Indiana is also lovely this time of year...
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