John Stachel

Based upon the proceedings of the First International Conference on the History of General Relativity, held at Boston University's Osgood Hill Conference Center, North Andover, Massachusetts, 8-11 May 1986, this volume brings together essays by twelve prominent historians and philosophers of science and physicists. The topics range from the development of general relativity (John Norton, John Stachel) and its early reception (Carlo Cattani, Michelangelo De Maria, Anne Kox), through attempts to understand the physical implications of the theory (Jean Eisenstaedt, Peter Havas) and to quantize it (Peter G. Bergmann), to elaborations of the theory into a unified theory of electromagnetism and gravitation (Vladimir P. Vizgin, Michel Biezunski), and considerations of its cosmological extensions (Pierre Kerszberg, George F.R. Ellis). This is the first volume to survey many of the most important questions in the history of general relativity, with many of the contributions drawing upon such original resources as the Einstein Archive. It is hoped that it will stimulate much-needed further research in this hitherto neglected area.

Comme le suggère le sobriquet « Zweistein », Wolfgang Pauli fut considéré par la communauté des théoriciens de la physique comme son membre le plus éminent après Albert Einstein. Durant plus de trente-cinq ans, les deux hommes entretinrent des relations intellectuelles et personnelles. Cet article analyse les relations entre quatre thèmes récurrents de leurs discussions. 1) La théorie de la relativité: à l'âge de 20 ans, Pauli préparait un manuel qui fera autorité sur la relativité, manuel qu'il révisera vers la fin de sa vie et qui demeure incomparable aux yeux des physiciens et des historiens de la physique. 2) La théorie du champ unifié: même s'il éprouvait de la sympathie, à l'origine, pour les recherches d'Einstein en vue d'une unification des théories de l'électromagnétisme et de la gravitation, à laquelle il apporta plusieurs contributions majeures, Pauli en vint à considérer une telle entreprise comme stérile. 3) Les fondements de la mécanique quantique: le jugement négatif porté par Pauli sur le programme de recherche d'Einstein s'accentua en raison de leur profond désaccord sur le rôle que la mécanique quantique était appelée à jouer dans les développements futurs de la physique théorique. 4) La gravitation quantique: Pauli reconnaissait toutefois que, tant qu'une réconciliation fructueuse de la mécanique quantique et de la relativité générale ne serait pas accomplie - réconciliation qui nous échappe toujours-, les scientifiques ne pourraient ignorer le défi qu'Einstein adressait à la mécanique quantique.

In three volumes, a distinguished group of scholars from a variety of disciplines in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the arts contribute essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen, on the occasion of his 70th birthday. The range of the essays, as well as their originality, and their critical and historical depth, pay tribute to the extraordinary scope of Professor Cohen's intellectual interests, as a scientist-philosopher and a humanist, and also to his engagement in the world of social and political practice. Science, Mind and Art, Volume III of Essays in honor of Robert S. Cohen focuses on issues in contemporary epistemology, aesthetics, and philosophy of mind as well as on the relations of science and human values in ethical and religious thought. It also has important new work in contemporary metaphysics, as well as in the history of philosophy, and on questions of multiculturalism in science education. Contributors include Paul Feyerabend, Adolf Grünbaum, Joseph Margolis, Joëlle Proust, Erazim Kohak, Elie Wiesel, Miriam Bienenstock, and John Silber, among others.

After 1905, Einstein's miraculous year, physics would never be the same again. In those twelve months, Einstein shattered many cherished scientific beliefs with five extraordinary papers that would establish him as the world's leading physicist. This book brings those papers together in an accessible format. The best-known papers are the two that founded special relativity: On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies and Does the Inertia of a Body Depend on Its Energy Content? In the former, Einstein showed that absolute time had to be replaced by a new absolute: the speed of light. In the second, he asserted the equivalence of mass and energy, which would lead to the famous formula E = mc 2 . The book also includes On a Heuristic Point of View Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light , in which Einstein challenged the wave theory of light, suggesting that light could also be regarded as a collection of particles. This helped to open the door to a whole new world--that of quantum physics. For ideas in this paper, he won the Nobel Prize in 1921. The fourth paper also led to a Nobel Prize, although for another scientist, Jean Perrin. On the Movement of Small Particles Suspended in Stationary Liquids Required by the Molecular-Kinetic Theory of Heat concerns the Brownian motion of such particles. With profound insight, Einstein blended ideas from kinetic theory and classical hydrodynamics to derive an equation for the mean free path of such particles as a function of the time, which Perrin confirmed experimentally. The fifth paper, A New Determination of Molecular Dimensions , was Einstein's doctoral dissertation, and remains among his most cited articles. It shows how to calculate Avogadro's number and the size of molecules. These papers, presented in a modern English translation, are essential reading for any physicist, mathematician, or astrophysicist. Far more than just a collection of scientific articles, this book presents work that is among the high points of human achievement and marks a watershed in the history of science. Coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the miraculous year, this new paperback edition includes an introduction by John Stachel, which focuses on the personal aspects of Einstein's youth that facilitated and led up to the miraculous year

Towards the end of the career of many a distinguished scientist, or shortly after his or her death, an edition of the scientist's articles is published under the title: ‘The Collected Papers of…’. While not wishing to slight either the ceremonial importance or real utility of such collections, they must be clearly distinguished from the sort of editions on which theCollected Papers of Albert Einsteinis modelled. The former are primarily intended to make the published papers of a great scientist easily accessible to other scholars and students working in the same field as an aid to their research. The reader is provided with little or no help in understanding or evaluating the historical role these writings played in the development of this field, the circumstances leading to their creation, or how they fit into the life of their creator.

David Malament's (1977) well-known result, which is often taken to show the uniqueness of the Poincare-Einstein convention for defining simultaneity, involves an unwarranted physical assumption: that any simultaneity relation must remain invariant under temporal reflections. Once that assumption is removed, his other criteria for defining simultaneity are also satisfied by membership in the same backward (forward) null cone of the family of such cones with vertices on an inertial path. What is then unique about the Poincare-Einstein convention is that it is independent of the choice of inertial path in a given inertial frame, confirming a remark in Einstein 1905. Similarly, what is unique about the backward (forward) null cone definition is that it is independent of the state of motion of an observer at a point on the inertial path.

In the paper I wish to begin to explore the consequences for metaphysics of thinking that a good physical theory should be background-independent. More generally I want to ask whether the conception of time not as a background but as an active component of the physical universe has any significant consequences for metaphysics. I think that a natural conception of space and time is to regard them as a (possibly infinite) container or stage for the events that make up the history of the universe. They are not part of the contents of the container nor are they actors or props in the action on the stage. They are an inert but necessary background. This conception plays a part in metaphysical argument. And reasons to doubt that conception may undermine some of those arguments. In this paper I would like to examine this conception and the possible consequences of so doing for certain metaphysical questions.

After introductory surveys of Poincaré’s role in the Dreyfus case and of his “Fourth Geometry,” I turn to the main question. The problem confronting both Poincaré and Einstein was how to reconcile the phenomena of electrodynamics, notably the optical principle of relativity, with the principles of Newtonian mechanics. I show that, on such questions as the existence and role of the ether and the relation between kinematics and dynamics, Poincaré and Einstein held diametrically opposed views. Poincaré did everything to preserve the old viewpoint, while Einstein abandoned the absolute time and proposed a new mechanics.

Potentiality, Entanglement and Passion-at-a-Distance is a book for theoretical physicists and philosophers of modern physics. It treats a puzzling and provocative aspect of recent quantum physics: the apparent interaction of certain physical events that cannot share any causal connection. These are said to be `entangled' in some way, but an explanation remains elusive. Abner Shimony - to whom the book is dedicated - and others suggest the need to revive the category of what may be seen as a metaphysical potentiality. Abner has described these events without actions to link them as `passion at a distance': not active, but passive. The discussions gathered here are written by a truly remarkable cast of scientists and philosophers and shed new light on the most profound puzzles of our times.