Relativity Principles and Theories from Galileo to Einstein

Description

Motion is always relative to some thing. Is this thing a concrete body like the earth, is it an abstract space, or is it an imagined frame? Do the laws of physics depend on the choice of reference? It there a choice for which the laws are simplest? Is this choice unique? Is there a physical cause for the choice made? These questions traverse the history of modern physics from Galileo to Einstein. The answers involved Galilean relativity, Newton's absolute space, the purely relational concepts of Descartes, Leibniz, and Mach, and many forgotten uses of relativity principles in mechanics, optics, and electrodynamics - until the relativity theories of Poincaré, Einstein, Minkowksi, and Laue radically redefined space and time to satisfy universal kinds of relativity. Accordingly, this book retraces the emergence of relativity principles in early modern mechanics, documents their constructive use in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century mechanics, optics, and electrodynamics, and gives a well-rooted account of the genesis of special and general relativity in the early twentieth century. As an exercise in long-term history, it demonstrates the connectivity of issues and approaches across several centuries, despite enormous changes in context and culture. As an account of the genesis of relativity theories, it brings unprecedented clarity and fullness by broadening the spectrum of resources on which the principal actors drew. Cover Titlepage Copyright Contents Preface Conventions and notations 1 RETHINKING MOTION IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY 1.1 Galileo's science of motion 1.2 Beeckman and Descartes on free fall 1.3 Descartes's world 1.4 Newton's laws of motion 1.5 Huygens's mechanics Conclusions 2 DERIVING NEWTON'S SECOND LAW FROM RELATIVITY PRINCIPLES 2.1 Rational mechanics in the eighteenth century 2.2 Nineteenth-century French textbooks 2.3 Principles and deductions Conclusions 3 THE SPACE–TIME–INERTIA TANGLE 3.1 From Huygens to Kant 3.2 Criticism in the last third of the nineteenth century 3.3 The measurement of time Conclusions 4 THE OPTICS OF MOVING BODIES 4.1 The speed of light 4.2 The corpuscular approach 4.3 Stellar aberrations in the wave theory 4.4 The Fresnel drag 4.5 Toward an optical relativity Conclusions 5 THE ELECTRODYNAMICS OF MOVING BODIES 5.1 Early electrodynamics 5.2 German action at a distance 5.3 British field theories 5.4 Maxwell in Germany 5.5 Effects of absolute motion 5.6 The separation of ether and matter Conclusions 6 POINCARÉ'S RELATIVITY THEORY 6.1 Critical teaching 6.2 For the Lorentz jubilee 6.3 Inside the electron 6.4 The postulate of relativity Conclusions 7 THE RELATIVITY THEORY OF EINSTEIN, MINKOWSKI, AND LAUE 7.1 The young Einstein's ventures in electrodynamics 7.2 Alternatives to Lorentz's theory 7.3 Einstein's relativity theory 7.4 Early reception 1905–1908 7.5 Constructing a relativistic electron 7.6 Outside Germany Conclusions 8 FROM RIEMANN TO RICCI 8.1 Gauss's curved surfaces 8.2 Riemann's curvature 8.3 Non-Euclidean geometries 8.4 The absolute differential calculus Conclusions 9 MOSTLY EINSTEIN: TO GENERAL RELATIVITY 9.1 Heuristic arguments (1906–1911) 9.2 The static theory of 1912 9.3 The Zürich notebook 9.4 The Entwurf theory of 1913 9.5 The scalar theory 9.6 Bridled covariance 9.7 Justified transformations and adapted coordinates 9.8 November 1915 Conclusions 10 MESH AND MEASURE IN EARLY GENERAL RELATIVITY 10.1 A Gaussian preliminary 10.2 Einstein's Grundlage of 1916 10.3 The gravitational redshift 10.4 The gravitational deflection of light 10.5 The advance of Mercury's perihelion Conclusions 11 EPILOGUE 11.1 Actors and stages 11.2 Mechanical relativity 11.3 Optical relativity 11.4 Electrodynamic relativity 11.5 Special relativity 11.6 General relativity Abbreviations References Index