Albert Einstein on Writing

1984 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-18 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis E. Minor
Keyword(s):  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
Mental Images ◽  
Great Scientist ◽  
Ernst Mach ◽  
Moving Bodies ◽  
Free Variation

While a great scientist such as Albert Einstein may seem to work in another dimension of thought, Einstein struggled with converting that thought into words. He found a “model for scientific historical writing” in the work of Ernst Mach, an Austrian physicist. Mach's model, as modified by Einstein, takes the reader through the writer's thought processes—discovery of an anomaly, free variation of mental images, finding the invariant in those images, and the communication in words of the new concept. Einstein followed this model in his famous 1905 relativity paper, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies [1].

Planck, Max Karl Ernst Ludwig (1858–1947)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Don Howard
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Vienna Circle ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Quantum Hypothesis ◽  
Ernst Mach ◽  
Physics Community ◽  
Theoretical Physicist ◽  
Realist Conception

Planck was a German theoretical physicist and leader of the German physics community in the first half of the twentieth century. Famous for his introduction of the quantum hypothesis in physics, Planck was also a prolific writer on popular-scientific and philosophical topics. Even more so than his younger contemporary Albert Einstein, Planck was well-known in his day for his defence of a realist conception of science and his explicit criticism of the positivism of Ernst Mach and the Vienna Circle.

Einstein, Inventors, and Invention

1993 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Style ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Patent Office ◽  
Thought Processes ◽  
Professional Advice ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Advice Giving ◽  
Formative Experience

The ArgumentAlbert Einstein had more than a passing and trivial involvement with patents and inventions. The historian seeking to fathom Einstein's thought processes would be ill-advised to pass lightly over his years at the Swiss Federal Patent office (1902–1909) and to consider his professional advice-giving about patents and his patenting of his inventions as merely peripheral to his core concerns and cognitive style. Years of reading patents and visualizing the machines, devices, and electromagnetic phenomena described in them is a formative experience. A number of inventors besides Einstein enhanced their power of visualization from reading and writing patent claims. It is reasonable to conclude that the Patent Office years honed his remarkable gift for visually conceptualizing systematic artifactual relationships that he used in articulating theory.

Working with Instruments: Ernst Mach as Material Epistemologist, a Short Introduction

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 429-433
Author(s):  
Christoph Hoffmann ◽  
Alexandre Métraux
Keyword(s):  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Critical Issue ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
General Interest ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
Great Loss ◽  
Ernst Mach

With the death of Ernst Mach on February 19, 1916, one day after his seventy-eighth birthday, a question finally became explicit that had been looming for some time. It was as simple as it was fundamental: who, in the end, was this man, a scientist or a philosopher? The importance of this question for contemporaries can easily be gleaned from the obituaries that appeared in the weeks following Mach's death: one in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, written by Albert Einstein, and another in the Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie, written by Mach's former student Heinrich Gomperz. They both addressed this critical issue in plain words. Einstein stressed that Mach “was not a philosopher who chose the natural sciences as the object of his speculation, but a many-sided, interested, diligent scientist who also took visible pleasure in detailed questions outside the burning issues of general interest” (Einstein 1916, 104; translation cited in Blackmore 1992, 158). Gomperz in turn first emphasized the great loss science had experienced with Mach's death, asking subsequently whether “the suffering science is physics or philosophy?” (Gomperz 1916, 321). His answer broadly followed Einstein's conclusion; relying on Mach's own words, he reminded his readers that Mach never claimed to be a philosopher, but merely was looking for a viewpoint that transcended the disciplinary constraints of particular scientific activities.

‘A Man of my Type’—Editing the Einstein Papers

1987 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 57-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Stachel
Keyword(s):  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Great Scientist ◽  
Historical Role

Towards the end of the career of many a distinguished scientist, or shortly after his or her death, an edition of the scientist's articles is published under the title: ‘The Collected Papers of…’. While not wishing to slight either the ceremonial importance or real utility of such collections, they must be clearly distinguished from the sort of editions on which the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein is modelled. The former are primarily intended to make the published papers of a great scientist easily accessible to other scholars and students working in the same field as an aid to their research. The reader is provided with little or no help in understanding or evaluating the historical role these writings played in the development of this field, the circumstances leading to their creation, or how they fit into the life of their creator.

scholarly journals A física na visão de Ernst Mach: De uma crítica a Newton às teorias gravitacionais

2019 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
G.B. de Gracia
Keyword(s):  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Ernst Mach

Resumo O presente trabalho possui como objetivo introduzir conceitos chave da filosofia da ciência do físico austríaco Ernst Mach, assim como analisar a sua influência sobre teorias gravitacionais. Para tal, mostraremos que ela culmina numa crítica à ideia de espaço absoluto de Newton. Essa crítica teve considerável influência sobre Albert Einstein, entusiasta da filosofia de Mach, e o motivou a construir uma teoria que englobasse boa parte dos seus conceitos. Finalmente, analisaremos dois dos trabalhos originais de Einstein a fim de analisar a compatibilidade entre sua teoria gravitacional e as ideias de E.Mach. Assim, também comentaremos a respeito de uma generalização de sua teoria que visava incorporar toda a epistemologia Machiana.

scholarly journals Albert Einstein, cosmos and religion

2007 ◽  
pp. 61-72 ◽  
Author(s):  
V. Dokovic ◽  
P. Grujic
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Philo Of Alexandria ◽  
Baruch Spinoza ◽  
Great Scientist ◽  
Religious Background ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Ontological Aspect

We consider Einstein's attitude regarding religious as such, from both cosmological and epistemological points of view. An attempt to put it into a wider socio-historical perspective was made, with the emphasis on ethnic and religious background. It turns out that the great scientist was neither atheist nor believer in the orthodox sense and the closest labels one might stick to him in this respect would be pantheism/cosmism (ontological aspect) and agnosticism (episte?mological aspect). His ideas on divine could be considered as a continuation of line traced by Philo of Alexandria, who himself followed Greek Stoics and (Neo-) Platonists and especially Baruch Spinoza. It turns out that Einstein's both scientific (rational aspects) and religious (intuitive aspects) thinking were deeply rooted in the Hellenic culture. His striving to unravel the secrets of the universe and the roots of cosmological order resembles much the ancient ideas of the role of knowledge in fathoming the divine as such, as ascribed to Gnostics. .

scholarly journals De Mach ao ‘novo experimentalismo’

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-234
Author(s):  
Anabel Cardoso Raicik ◽  
Luiz O.Q. Peduzzi
Keyword(s):  
Albert Einstein ◽  
Thomas Kuhn ◽  
Ernst Mach

Experimentos de pensamento vêm sendo amplamente utilizados na história da ciência desde a Antiguidade. Contudo, somente por volta do século XIX eles passam a ser discutidos teoricamente, em termos de suas características e funcionalidades. Este artigo resgata estudos do físico e filósofo Ernst Mach, que acendem definitivamente as luzes sobre o potencial desses notáveis experimentos, considerações de Thomas Kuhn acerca desse conceito e a discussão do assunto a partir da menção a teses que surgem com o “novo experimentalismo”. Através de um exemplo desenvolvido por Albert Einstein em sua obra A teoria da relatividade especial e geral, reflete-se sobre essa temática e suas potencialidades para o ensino das ciências naturais, da física em particular.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document