The Genesis of General Relativity: Sources and Interpretations(250 Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science)

The transition from classical to modern physics in the ?rst half of the twentieth c- tury by quantum and relativity theories affected some of the most fundamental notions of physical thinking, such as matter, radiation, space, and time. This tran- tion thus represents a challenge for any attempt to understand the structures of a s- enti?c revolution. The present four-volume work aims at a comprehensive account of the way in which the work of Albert Einstein and his contemporaries changed our understanding of space, time, and gravitation. The conceptual framework of classical nineteenth-century physics had to be fundamentally restructured and reinterpreted in order to arrive at a theory of gravitation compatible with the new notions of space and time established in 1905 by Einstein's special theory of relativity. Whereas the classical theory of gravitation postulated an instantaneous action at a distance, Einstein's new relativistic kinematics rather suggested an analogy between the gravitational ?eld and the electromagnetic ?eld, propagating with a ?nite speed. It is therefore not surprising that Einstein was not alone in addressing the problem of formulating a theory of gravitation that complies with the kinematics of relativity t- ory. The analysis of these alternative approaches, as well as of earlier alternative approaches to gravitation within classical physics, turns out to be crucial for identi- ing the necessities and contingencies in the actual historical development.

Table of Contents:
to Volumes 1 and 2: The Zurich Notebook and the Genesis of General Relativity.- Classical Physics In Disarray.- The First Two Acts.- Pathways out of Classical Physics.- Einstein's Zurich Notebook.- A Commentary on the Notes on Gravity in the Zurich Notebook.- What was Einstein's “Fateful Prejudice”?.- What did Einstein know and when did He know it? A Besso Memo Dated August 1913.- Untying the Knot: how Einstein Found his way Back to Field Equations Discarded in the Zurich Notebook.- The Gravitational Force between Mechanics and Electrodynamics.- Gravitation in the Twilight of Classical Physics: An Introduction.- The Third Way to General Relativity: Einstein and Mach in Context.- Gravitation.- Considerations on Gravitation.- Absolute or Relative Motion?.- On Absolute and Relative Motion.- An Astronomical Road to a New Theory of Gravitation.- The Continuity Between Classical and Relativistic Cosmology in the Work of Karl Schwarzschild.- Things at Rest in the Universe.- A New Law of Gravitation Enforced by Special Relativity.- Breaking in the 4-Vectors: The Four-Dimensional Movement in Gravitation, 1905–1910.- On The Dynamics of the Electron (Excerpts).- Mechanics and the Relativity Postulate.- Old and New Questions in Physics (Excerpt).- The Problem of Gravitation as a Challenge for the Minkowski Formalism.- The Summit Almost Scaled: Max Abraham as a Pioneer of a Relativistic Theory of Gravitation.- On the Theory of Gravitation.- The Free Fall.- A New Theory of Gravitation.- Recent Theories of Gravitation.- A Field Theory of Gravitation in the Framework of Special Relativity.- Einstein, Nordström, and the Early Demise of Scalar, Lorentz Covariant Theories of Gravitation.- The Principle of Relativity and Gravitation.- Inertial and Gravitational Mass In RelativisticMechanics.- On the Theory of Gravitation from the Standpoint of the Principle of Relativity.- On the Present State of the Problem of Gravitation.- From Heretical Mechanics to a New Theory of Relativity.- Einstein and Mach's Principle.- On the Relativity Problem.- Ether and the Theory of Relativity.- From an Electromagnetic Theory of Matter to a New Theory of Gravitation.- Mie's Theories of Matter and Gravitation.- Foundations of a Theory of Matter (Excerpts).- Remarks Concerning Einstein's Theory of Gravitation.- The Principle of the Relativity of the Gravitational Potential.- The Momentum-Energy Law in the Electrodynamics of Gustav Mie.- Including Gravitation in a Unified Theory of Physics.- The Origin of Hilbert's Axiomatic Method1.- Hilbert's Foundation of Physics: From a Theory of Everything to a Constituent of General Relativity.- Einstein Equations and Hilbert Action: What is Missing on Page 8 of the Proofs for Hilbert's First Communication on the Foundations of Physics?1.- The Foundations of Physics..- The Foundations of Physics (First Communication).- The Foundations of Physics (Second Communication).- From Peripheral Mathematics to a New Theory of Gravitation.- The Story of Newstein or: Is Gravity Just Another Pretty Force?.- On the Relation of Non-Euclidean Geometry to Extension Theory.- Notion of Parallelism on a General Manifold and Consequent Geometrical Specification of the Riemannian Curvature (Excerpts).- Purely Infinitesimal Geometry (Excerpt).- The Dynamics of Continuous Media and the Notion of an Affine Connection on Space-Time.

Review :
From the reviews: These volumes prove that to Wittgenstein's saying that "Genius is what makes us forget skill" ought to be added the statement "when viewing the finished product." Genius is also the ability to master the available resources and techniques and to synthesize them in a manner that overwhelms. The volumes are the product of a remarkable cooperative effort on the part of five of the most distinguished Einstein scholars. They deciphered and analyzed the extended research notes that Einstein made from 1912 to 1915 in his struggle to arrive at the final formulation of his theory of general relativity. In doing so they have given us deep new insights on Einstein's creativity and on creativity in general, on context, on the role of past resources and expertise, and on the function of analogies. Their researches, observations and commentary have also made us think anew of the concept of a scientific revolution. Their splendid work is surely one of the most important and seminal scholarly accomplishments of recent times. S.S. Schweber, Brandeis University, USA "The publication of The Genesis of General Relativity marks the outcome of 10 years of research into the origins of Einstein's General Relativity Theory ... . It provides a comprehensive study and in-depth analysis of how the work of Albert Einstein and his contemporaries changes our understanding of space, time and gravitation. ... At the center of this reconstruction, is a commentary of Einstein's unpublished research notes, so-called 'Zurich Notebook', presented in their entirety for the first time." (Renn Jurgen, www.physorg.com, February, 2007) These volumes are the result of over two decades of effort, by most of the leading scholars in the field, to understand the process that culminated in 1915 and 1916 in Einstein's publication of the general theory of relativity. In addition to relativity physicists the project involved, both individually and more frequently collaboratively, historians and philosophers of science. The central objective was, through this richly documented case study, to identify universal features of the epistemological transformation that the authors have called a "Copernican process": How is it that heuristic guides can render conceptual changes that invalidate their use? This dynamical transmutation is firmly rooted in received societal and disciplinary scientific knowledge. In the particular case under study here, most relativists will probably have little trouble rejecting the mistaken popular notion that Einstein was an isolated genius, creating his new world through shear inspired imagination... Donald Salisbury, July 2008 To read more of this review - paste this link into your browser. http://arxiv1.library.cornell.edu/abs/0807.3706v1