Einstein's Clocks and Poincare's Maps: Empires of TimeW. W. Norton & Company, 2004/09/14 - 389 ページ "More than a history of science; it is a tour de force in the genre."—New York Times Book Review A dramatic new account of the parallel quests to harness time that culminated in the revolutionary science of relativity, Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps is "part history, part science, part adventure, part biography, part meditation on the meaning of modernity....In Galison's telling of science, the meters and wires and epoxy and solder come alive as characters, along with physicists, engineers, technicians and others....Galison has unearthed fascinating material" (New York Times). Clocks and trains, telegraphs and colonial conquest: the challenges of the late nineteenth century were an indispensable real-world background to the enormous theoretical breakthrough of relativity. And two giants at the foundations of modern science were converging, step-by-step, on the answer: Albert Einstein, an young, obscure German physicist experimenting with measuring time using telegraph networks and with the coordination of clocks at train stations; and the renowned mathematician Henri Poincaré, president of the French Bureau of Longitude, mapping time coordinates across continents. Each found that to understand the newly global world, he had to determine whether there existed a pure time in which simultaneity was absolute or whether time was relative. Esteemed historian of science Peter Galison has culled new information from rarely seen photographs, forgotten patents, and unexplored archives to tell the fascinating story of two scientists whose concrete, professional preoccupations engaged them in a silent race toward a theory that would conquer the empire of time. |
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absolute abstract Albert Einstein American Archives astronomers Barnard Bern British Bureau of Longitude cable Calinon caré caré’s century clock coordination Collected Papers Translation concept Conrad Habicht conventions coordinated clocks Cornu critical opalescence decimal distant earth Eiffel Tower Einstein electrical electrodynamics electromagnetic engineers equations ether experiments Favarger Figure Fleming frame France French geometry Greenwich Harvard Harvard College Observatory Henri Poincaré Ianssen Ibid insisted intuition light Lorentz machine magnetic mathematical mathematician measure mechanics meter Minkowski Mittag—Leffler modern motion moving Newton’s non—Euclidean observer ofa second ofthe oftime Olympia Academy Paris Observatory patent office philosophical physicists physics Poin Poincare Polytechnique precision prime meridian principle of relativity problem procedure Quito radio railroad reform relativity principle scientific scientists signal simultaneity space speed standard station Swiss synchronized clocks telegraph tion train transmission unification University W. F. Allen wires zones