Writing Worth Reading
Writing Worth Reading
This is an absolutely brilliant investigation into two related discoveries that deal with how you define what is simultaneous. Poincaré helped us get to the notion of time zones and longitude in the 19th century. Einstein was working as a patent clerk in 1905, and Galison’s wonderful research shows how he was looking at a lot of applications for ways to synchronise clocks. They tended to require sending a light or radio signal between two distant clocks, and this helped inform Einstein’s thought experiments that led to his special theory of relativity.
Your first book is Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps.
This is an absolutely brilliant investigation into two related discoveries that deal with how you define what is simultaneous. Poincaré helped us get to the notion of time zones and longitude in the 19th century. Einstein was working as a patent clerk in 1905, because he couldn’t get an academic job, and Galison shows how he was looking at a lot of applications for ways to synchronise clocks because the Swiss had gone on standard time zones and, because they were very Swiss, they wanted the clock to strike seven in Bern at the exact same time as it struck seven in Zurich. In order to synchronise the clocks you have to send a signal between them and that signal travels at the speed of light. So Einstein had to visualise how you define what is simultaneous by using a light signal. He realised that what is simultaneous to two people standing still is different if one person is in motion. And that is how he came to his theory of relativity. He realised that as you approach the speed of light time flows more slowly. The book is a great piece of research looking at the patent applications that Einstein saw and showing his thinking. Galison tried to uncover the various patents for devices that would synchronise clocks. This is a triumph of research combined with brilliant conceptual insights.
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The former editor of Time magazine and CEO of CNN has written the seminal work on Einstein’s life and theory. He tells us Einstein bet his wife he’d win the Nobel Prize for his 1905 work and promised her the prize money in return for a divorce. ‘She takes a week to calculate the odds...and she takes the bet. He didn’t win until 1921 but he did give her the money and she bought three apartment buildings in Zurich.’
