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How the Einsteinian revolution can be understood as the result of a
long-term evolution of science The revolution that emerged from
Albert Einstein’s work in the early twentieth century transformed
our understanding of space, time, motion, gravity, matter, and
radiation. Beginning with Einstein’s miracle year of 1905 and
continuing through his development of the theory of general
relativity, Einstein spurred a revolution that continues to
reverberate in modern-day physics. In The Einsteinian Revolution,
Hanoch Gutfreund and Jürgen Renn trace the century-long
transformation of classical physics and argue that the revolution
begun by Einstein was in fact the result of a long-term evolution.
Describing the origins and context of Einstein’s innovative
research, Gutfreund and Renn work to dispel the popular myth of
Einstein as a lone genius who brought about a revolution in physics
through the power of his own pure thought. We can only understand
the birth of modern physics, they say, if we understand the long
history of the evolution of knowledge. Gutfreund and Renn outline
the essential structures of the knowledge system of classical
physics on which Einstein drew. Examining Einstein’s discoveries
from 1905 onward, they describe the process by which new concepts
arose and the basis of modern physics emerged. These
transformations continued, eventually resulting in the
establishment of quantum physics and general relativity as the two
major conceptual frameworks of modern physics—and its two
unreconciled theoretical approaches. Gutfreund and Renn note that
Einstein was dissatisfied with this conceptual dichotomy and began
a search for a unified understanding of physics—a quest that
continued for the rest of his life.
This volume is put together in honor of a distinguished historian
of science, Kostas Gavroglu, whose work has won international
acclaim, and has been pivotal in establishing the discipline of
history of science in Greece, its consolidation in other countries
of the European Periphery, and the constructive dialogue of these
emerging communities with an extended community of international
scholars. The papers in the volume reflect Gavroglu’s broad range
of intellectual interests and touch upon significant themes in
recent history and philosophy of science. They include topics in
the history of modern physical sciences, science and technology in
the European periphery, integrated history and philosophy of
science, historiographical considerations, and intersections with
the history of mathematics, technology and contemporary issues.
They are authored by eminent scholars whose academic and personal
trajectories crossed with Gavroglu’s. The book will interest
historians and philosophers of science and technology alike, as
well as science studies scholars, and generally readers interested
in the role of the sciences in the past in various geographical
contexts.
Einstein's field equations of gravitation are a core element of his
general theory of relativity. In four short communications to the
Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in November 1015, we
can follow the final steps toward these equations and the resulting
theory's spectacular success in accounting for the anomalous
motion of Mercury's perihelion. This source book provides an
expert guide to these four groundbreaking papers. Following an
introductory essay placing these papers in the context of the
development of Einstein's theory, it presents and analyzes,
in addition to the four papers of November 1915, a careful
selection of (critical excerpts from) papers, letters, and
manuscripts documenting the path that early on led Einstein
to the field equations of the first November 1915 paper, but then
took a turn away from them only to lead back to them in
the end. Drawing on extensive research at the Einstein
Papers Project and the Max Planck Institute for History of
Science, this volume traces the intricate interplay between
considerations of physics and considerations
of mathematics that guided Einstein along this path. It thus
presents a concise yet authoritative account of how Einstein
found his field equations, affording readers who are prepared to
immerse themselves in these intricacies a unique glimpse of
Einstein at work at the height of his creative prowess. Highlights
of this journey in Einstein's footsteps include the crucial
pages (with detailed annotation) from the Zurich Notebook,
the record of Einstein's early search for field equation with his
mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann, and the Einstein-Besso
manuscript, documenting Einstein's attempts with his
friend and confidant Michele Besso to explain the Mercury anomaly
on the basis of the equations that he and Grossmann had
eventually settled on in the Zurich Notebook.
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