The Physicist and the Philosopher : : Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time / / Jimena Canales.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton University Press Complete eBook-Package 2014-2015
• VerfasserIn: Canales, Jimena,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2015]; ©2015
• Year of Publication: 2015
• Edition: Course Book
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (488 p.)

On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. Einstein considered Bergson's theory of time to be a soft, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood exclusively through the lens of science, criticized Einstein's theory of time for being a metaphysics grafted on to science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today.Jimena Canales introduces readers to the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, describes how they dramatically collided in Paris, and traces how this clash of worldviews reverberated across the twentieth century. She shows how it provoked responses from figures such as Bertrand Russell and Martin Heidegger, and carried repercussions for American pragmatism, logical positivism, phenomenology, and quantum mechanics. Canales explains how the new technologies of the period-such as wristwatches, radio, and film-helped to shape people's conceptions of time and further polarized the public debate. She also discusses how Bergson and Einstein, toward the end of their lives, each reflected on his rival's legacy-Bergson during the Nazi occupation of Paris and Einstein in the context of the first hydrogen bomb explosion.The Physicist and the Philosopher is a magisterial and revealing account that shows how scientific truth was placed on trial in a divided century marked by a new sense of time.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Preface -- PART 1. THE DEBATE -- CHAPTER 1. Untimely -- CHAPTER 2. "More Einsteinian than Einstein" -- CHAPTER 3. Science or Philosophy? -- PART 2. THE MEN -- CHAPTER 4. The Twin Paradox -- CHAPTER 5. Bergson's Achilles' Heel -- CHAPTER 6. Worth Mentioning? -- CHAPTER 7. Bergson Writes to Lorentz -- CHAPTER 8. Bergson Meets Michelson -- CHAPTER 9. The Debate Spreads -- CHAPTER 10. Back from Paris -- CHAPTER 11. Two Months Later -- CHAPTER 12. Logical Positivism -- CHAPTER 13. The Immediate Aftermath -- CHAPTER 14. An Imaginary Dialogue -- CHAPTER 15. "Full-Blooded" Time -- CHAPTER 16. The Previous Spring -- CHAPTER 17. The Church -- CHAPTER 18. The End of Universal Time -- CHAPTER 19. Quantum Mechanics -- PART 3. THE THINGS -- CHAPTER 20. Things -- CHAPTER 21. Clocks and Wristwatches -- CHAPTER 22. Telegraph, Telephone, and Radio -- CHAPTER 23. Atoms and Molecules -- CHAPTER 24. Einstein's Films: Reversible -- CHAPTER 25. Bergson's Movies: Out of Control -- CHAPTER 26. Microbes and Ghosts -- CHAPTER 27. One New Point: Recording Devices -- PART 4. THE WORDS -- CHAPTER 28. Bergson's Last Comments -- CHAPTER 29. Einstein's Last Thoughts -- Postface -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index