4. Einstein’s Autobiographical Notes and Planck’s Scientific Autobiography

Chapters in this book

1. Frontmatter i
2. CONTENTS vii
3. Introduction ix
4. I. Preliminaries
5. 1. The Genesis and Scope of the Autobiographical Notes 1
6. 2. Schilpp’s Enterprise: The Library of Living Philosophers 9
7. 3. Historical Background: The Year 1946 13
8. 4. Einstein’s Autobiographical Notes and Planck’s Scientific Autobiography 21
9. II. The Autobiographical Notes—Commentaries
10. 1. The Quest for a Unified Worldview 27
11. 2. “Striving for a Conceptual Grasp of Things” 30
12. 3. “My Epistemological Credo” 40
13. 4. The Mechanical Worldview and Its Demise: “And Now to the Critique of Mechanics as the Basis of Physics” 50
14. 5. The Rise of the Electromagnetic Worldview and the Field Concept: “The Transition from Action at a Distance to Fields” 56
15. 6. Planck’s Black-Body Radiation Formula: “But the Matter Has a Serious Drawback” 59
16. 7. Einstein’s Statistical Mechanics: Closing the “Gap” 65
17. 8. Brownian Motion: “The Existence of Atoms of Definite Finite Size” 71
18. 9. A Reflecting Mirror in Radiation Field: “The Mirror Must Experience Certain Random Fluctuations” 76
19. 10. The Special Theory of Relativity: “There Is No Such Thing as Simultaneity of Distant Events” 79
20. 11. The General Theory of Relativity: “Why Were Another Seven Years Required?” 85
21. 12. Quantum Mechanics: “This Theory Offers No Useful Point of Departure for Future Development” 91
22. 13. The Unified Field Theory: “Finding the Field Equations for the Total Field” 95
23. III. Einstein and His Critics
24. 1. The Physicists and Philosophers Who Contributed to the Volume 107
25. 2. Einstein’s “Reply to Criticisms” 117
26. IV. Einstein’s “Autobiographical Sketch” (1955)
27. 1. Introductory Remarks 139
28. 2. “Autobiographical Sketch”—An English Translation 144
29. V. Concluding Remarks: Einstein the Philosopher-Scientist 149
30. VI. Reprint of the English Translation of Autobiographical Notes 155
31. References 185
32. Index 191