Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of TimeA 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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Contents
Acknowledgments | 9 |
SYNCHRONY | 13 |
Einsteins Times | 14 |
A Critical Opalescence | 26 |
Order of Argument | 41 |
COAL CHAOS AND CONVENTION | 48 |
Coal | 54 |
Chaos | 62 |
Of Time and Maps | 174 |
Mission to Quito | 191 |
Etherial Time | 198 |
A Triple Conjunction | 211 |
EINSTEINS CLOCKS | 221 |
TheoryMachines | 227 |
Patent Truths | 243 |
Clocks First | 263 |
Convention | 76 |
THE ELECTRIC WORLDMAP | 84 |
Times Trains and Telegraphs | 98 |
Marketing Time | 107 |
Measuring Society | 113 |
Time into Space | 128 |
Battle over Neutrality | 144 |
POINCARES MAPS | 156 |
Decimalizing Time | 162 |
Radio Eiffel | 271 |
THE PLACE OF TIME | 294 |
Two Modernisms | 303 |
Looking Up Looking Down | 322 |
Notes | 329 |
355 | |
371 | |
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Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time: Empires of Time Peter Galison Limited preview - 2004 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute abstract American Archives astronomers Barnard Bern Bernardières British Bureau of Longitude cable Calinon Cambridge caré 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 France French geometry Greenwich Harvard Harvard College Observatory Henri Poincaré Ibid insisted intuition Janssen Lorentz machine magnetic mathematical mathematician measure mechanics metaphysical meter Mileva Marić Minkowski Mittag-Leffler modern motion moving bodies non-Euclidean geometry observer Olympia Academy Paris Observatory patent office philosophical physicists physics Poin Polytechnique precision prime meridian problem procedure Quito radio railroad reform relativity principle Sandford Fleming scientific scientists signal simultaneity space speed of light standard station Swiss synchronized clocks telegraph theory tion train transmission unification University W. F. Allen wires York zones