Physical Relativity

It is not widely known that Einstein had doubts, increasing with time, about the way he formulated his special theory of relativity in 1905. Physical Relativity examines the grounds of these doubts and related misgivings on the part of a handful of physicists and philosophers in the course of the twentieth century. Harvey Brown defends an interpretation of relativity theory, and hence of the nature of space and time, that combines Einstein’s insights with those of his immediate precursors, who today are widely regarded as having had the right ideas for the wrong reasons. Appearing in the centennial year of Einstein’s celebrated paper on special relativity, Physical Relativity is an unusual, critical examination of Einstein’s thinking that will be of great interest to philosophers of physics, physicists, and historians of science.

Table of Contents

1. Overview

2. The Physics of Coordinate Transformations

3. The Relativity Principle and the Fable of Albert Keinstein

4. The Trailblazers

5. Einstein’s Principle-theory Approach

6. Variations on the Einstein Theme

7. Unconventional Voices on Special Relativity

8. What is Special Relativity?

9. The View from General Relativity

Appendix A Einstein on General Covariance

Appendix B Special Relativity and Quantum Theory