Einstein: His Life and Universe

Einstein’s Brownian motion are in Gribbin and Gribbin, 61; Bernstein 2006, 117. I am grateful to George Stranahan of the Aspen Center for Physics for his help on the mathematics behind this relationship.

36

. Einstein, “On the Theory of Brownian Motion,” 1906, CPAE 2: 32 (in which he notes Seidentopf ’s results); Gribbin and Gribbin, 63; Clark, 89; Max Born, “Einstein’s Statistical Theories,” in Schilpp, 166.

CHAPTER SIX: SPECIAL RELATIVITY

1

. Contemporary historical research on Einstein’s special theory begins with Gerald Holton’s essay, “On the Origins of the Special Theory of Relativity” (1960), reprinted in Holton 1973, 165. Holton remains a guiding light in this field. Most of his earlier essays are incorporated in his books

Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein

(1973),

Einstein, History and Other Passions

(2000), and

The Scientific Imagination,

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Einstein’s popular description is his 1916 book,

Relativity: The Special and the General Theory

, and his more technical description is his 1922 book,

The Meaning of Relativity

.

For good explanations of special relativity, see Miller 1981, 2001; Galison; Bernstein 2006; Calder; Feynman 1997; Hoffmann 1983; Kaku; Mermin; Penrose; Sartori; Taylor and Wheeler 1992; Wolfson.

This chapter draws on these books along with the articles by John Stachel; Arthur I. Miller; Robert Rynasiewicz; John D. Norton; John Earman, Clark Glymour, and Robert Rynasiewicz; and Michel Jannsen listed in the bibliography. See also Wertheimer 1959. Arthur I. Miller provides a careful and skeptical look at Max Wertheimer’s attempt to reconstruct Einstein’s development of special relativity as a way to explain Gestalt psychology; see Miller 1984, 189–195.

2

. See Janssen 2004 for an overview of the arguments that Einstein’s attempt to extend general relativity to arbitrary and rotating motion was not fully successful and perhaps less necessary than he thought.

3

. Galileo Galilei,

Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems

(1632), translated by Stillman Drake, 186.

4

. Miller 1999, 102.

5

. Einstein, “Ether and the Theory of Relativity,” address at the University of Leiden, May 5, 1920.

6

. Ibid.; Einstein 1916, chapter 13.

7

. Einstein, “Ether and the Theory of Relativity,” address at the University of Leiden, May 5, 1920.

8

. Einstein to Dr. H. L. Gordon, May 3, 1949, AEA 58-217.

9

. See Alan Lightman’s

Einstein’s Dreams

for an imaginative and insightful fictional rumination on Einstein’s discovery of special relativity. Lightman captures the flavor of the professional, personal, and scientific thoughts that might have been swirling in Einstein’s mind.

10

. Peter Galison, the Harvard science historian, is the most compelling proponent of the influence of Einstein’s technological environment. Arthur I. Miller presents a milder version. Among those who feel that these influences are overstated are John Norton, Tilman Sauer, and Alberto Martinez. See Alberto Martinez, “Material History and Imaginary Clocks,”

Physics in Perspective

6 (2004): 224.