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49 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Clockwatchers, September 22, 2003
In this book, Peter Galison attempts to show that scientists and mathematicians, no matter how brilliant, do not work in a vacuum. The focus is more on Henri Poincare than Albert Einstein, although Einstein is certainly not slighted. It's just that Mr. Galison feels, at least as far as the general public is concerned, Poincare has been "slighted,"....and this book, in part, is an attempt to redress the situation. It is easy to think of mathematicians and physicists as being disconnected from the "real world." Mr. Galison wants to show us, however, that they are influenced heavily by their colleagues in the scientific community and, more generally, by the culture they are part of. Thus, Poincare (president of the French Bureau of Longitude) was a creature of his times: he was "formed" by his education at the Ecole Polytechnique, with its emphasis on combining theory with practice. He was a man who "networked," and constantly exchanged ideas with fellow mathematicians and scientists. As a Frenchman, he shared in the humiliation of the French defeat at the hands of the Prussians in the war of 1870. Thus, it was important for France to lead the way in the longitudinal mapping of the planet (which required the synchronization of clocks across great distances). This longitudinal mapping was important for war and peace (for moving armies and navies...and oceangoing commerce). Synchronized clocks, even apart from their relationship to longitude, were also important for other reasons- such as for regulating railroad schedules. Mr. Galison's point: time was in the air and, since the outlook was global, there was an understanding that time was relative rather than absolute. Mr. Galison is not trying to say that Poincare "invented" the Theory of Special Relativity. What he is trying to say is that the obsession with time was "in the ether." Einstein, in Switzerland, was not immune to these influences. Which brings us to, for me, anyway, the most interesting part of the book - the relationship between Einstein's work at the Bern patent office (both the specifics and the methodology). People were constantly trying to come up with better ways of synchronizing clocks, and Einstein saw many of these patent applications. Also, it was his job to evaluate patent applications. The patent application (amongst other things) has to show that you've come up with something original, and it also has to show clearly how the invention will work. Mr. Galison makes a convincing argument that Einstein's job, at the very least, kept him thinking about the synchronization (and, hence, the relativity) of time. Even more interesting, in his 1905 paper on Special Relativity, Einstein did not use footnotes or make references to other scientists. Mr. Galison speculates: was this arrogance on Einstein's part, or was he influenced by his work at the patent office? In other words, it wouldn't help your case if, in a patent application, you showed how your idea was based on other ideas. You needed to show you had come up with something new. Regarding patents and practicality, Einstein, in his 1905 paper, included "thought experiments" to show how his theory should function in the real world. Let me stress that Mr. Galison is not trying to downplay Einstein's brilliance. He is trying to show that everyone is affected by what is going on around them - no exceptions granted. Mr. Galison is also keen to show us the differences in the working methods of the two men. Einstein was a bit of a rebel - he enjoyed overturning the apple cart. Hence he was not reluctant to discard theories he had no use for. Poincare believed more in building on what came before him, and in reaching consensus. According to Mr. Galison, this makes Poincare appear conservative- but this isn't so. He was a brilliant man, but just not as radical as Einstein. To paraphrase an analogy the author uses, Pablo Picasso may not have been Jackson Pollock, but this didn't make Picasso conservative. One caveat concerning the book: it is certainly not for the beginner. Mr. Galison's explanations and diagrams are clear and concise. However, since I don't have much of a background in math, I found the sections on Poincare to be tough-sledding. I have previously done some reading on relativity, so I found the sections on Einstein to be a bit easier to get through. So, just be aware that the author is expecting that you have some familiarity with what he is talking about. That caveat aside, I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
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72 of 90 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps: Too Much of a good thing, September 28, 2003
With a life long fascination toward those things mathematical, scientific and historical, I approached Peter Galison's book with happy expectations. Investing three days in its reading and finding much new material of interest, I have no problem with Mr. Galison's credentials as a scholar and historian of science. Sadly, what is admirable regarding his book has been seriously compromised by Galison's maddening redundancy and deluge of verbosity. How many times need he remind us that Poincare was trained at the Ecole Polytechnique and headed the Bureau des Longitudes, or that Einstein was more than just a clerk at the Swiss Patent Office where he received valuable experience regarding clock synchronization? Though some reviewers found the book overly technical, I would have appreciated more detail in the thoughts and experiments of the two protagonists, as well as more information than was given regarding the contributions and lives of other significant players such as Minkowski, Maxwell, Lorentz and Mach. While the notes, bibliography, and Galison's insights attest to his dedication and knowledge, the 328 pages of text, for what they contained, could easily have been reduced by 75 to 100 pages, if not more. I can only wonder if the author was simply churning out text to meet the obligations of a book contract. Besides being personally frustrating --because I truly appreciated much of what he presented-- this excess, as I forced myself to read through the final pages, became laughable. Before he publishes his next book, I strongly suggest Gallison take a freshman course in journalism at his university, Harvard, so that he might be more sensitive to the literary advantages of trimming the fat!
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12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An intriguing and enthusiastically recommended coverage, February 8, 2004
Einstein and Poincare were two inventors who made parallel attempts to harness time and helped create the science of relativity; but no single study has previously drawn such close links between the efforts of the young German physicist Einstein and the mathematician Poincare. Peter Galison's Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps expertly examines the achievements and details of each, and in doing so incorporats new information drawn from forgotten patents, rare photos, and archived materials to chart a little-known but inherently fascinating race toward a theory of time. An important addition to school and community library History of Science collections, Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps is an exciting, intriguing and enthusiastically recommended coverage.
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