CHAPTER 7. Bergson Writes to Lorentz

Chapter

Requires Authentication

CHAPTER 7. Bergson Writes to Lorentz

or

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00

Published by

View more publications by Princeton University Press

To Publisher Page

This chapter is in the book The Physicist and the Philosopher

CHAPTER 7Bergson Writes to LorentzHAARLEM, HOLLANDIn 1928 Einstein traveled to Holland to deliver a moving funeral speech. His colleague and friend Hendrik A. Lorentz had just died, at the age of seventy-four. On a Friday, exactly at noontime, the state telegraph and telephone services of the country were suspended for three minutes as a “tribute to the greatest man Holland has produced in our time.”1Despite being a close friend, an illustrious scientist, and the author of the relativity equations Einstein used, the Dutchman never accepted his conclusions. Why not?Lorentz received the coveted Nobel Prize for physics in 1902. In 1895 he proposed that lengths could contract under motion. A few years later, he proposed that clocks could slow down under these same cir-cumstances. The reasons why scholars are fascinated with Einstein’s re-lationship to Lorentz are similar to those fueling interest in his relation-ship with Henri Poincaré. Why did these two scientists fail to espouse the theory that would revolutionize physics? Einstein had a close and affectionate relationship to Lorentz, who was somewhat of a father fig-ure for the younger physicist.2 Their work on relativity was initially so similar, and it was so difficult to tease apart the contributions of each man, that it was often called the Einstein-Lorentz theory. But their re-lationship was not always smooth, particularly when it came to certain interpretations of relativity.Abraham Pais, a colleague turned Einstein biographer, described him as not being able to “let go” of the old theories, much like Poincaré.3

You are currently not able to access this content.

Not sure if you should have access? Please log in using an institutional account to see if you have access to view or download this content.

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00

CHAPTER 7Bergson Writes to LorentzHAARLEM, HOLLANDIn 1928 Einstein traveled to Holland to deliver a moving funeral speech. His colleague and friend Hendrik A. Lorentz had just died, at the age of seventy-four. On a Friday, exactly at noontime, the state telegraph and telephone services of the country were suspended for three minutes as a “tribute to the greatest man Holland has produced in our time.”1Despite being a close friend, an illustrious scientist, and the author of the relativity equations Einstein used, the Dutchman never accepted his conclusions. Why not?Lorentz received the coveted Nobel Prize for physics in 1902. In 1895 he proposed that lengths could contract under motion. A few years later, he proposed that clocks could slow down under these same cir-cumstances. The reasons why scholars are fascinated with Einstein’s re-lationship to Lorentz are similar to those fueling interest in his relation-ship with Henri Poincaré. Why did these two scientists fail to espouse the theory that would revolutionize physics? Einstein had a close and affectionate relationship to Lorentz, who was somewhat of a father fig-ure for the younger physicist.2 Their work on relativity was initially so similar, and it was so difficult to tease apart the contributions of each man, that it was often called the Einstein-Lorentz theory. But their re-lationship was not always smooth, particularly when it came to certain interpretations of relativity.Abraham Pais, a colleague turned Einstein biographer, described him as not being able to “let go” of the old theories, much like Poincaré.3

You are currently not able to access this content.

Not sure if you should have access? Please log in using an institutional account to see if you have access to view or download this content.

Purchase Chapter PDF

$42.00