Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Stillwater Public Library | 530.1109 STA | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
"Stanley is a storyteller par excellence."-- The Washington Post
Kirkus Review starred review; Publishers Weekly starred review; Booklist starred review
The birth of a world-changing idea in the middle of a bloodbath
Einstein's War is a riveting exploration of both the beauty of scientific creativity and enduring horrors of human nature. These two great forces battle in a story that culminates with a victory now a century old, the mind-bending theory of general relativity.
Few recognize how the Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Einstein's life and work. While Einstein never held a rifle, he formulated general relativity blockaded in Berlin, literally starving. He lost fifty pounds in three months, unable to communicate with his most important colleagues. Some of those colleagues fought against rabid nationalism; others were busy inventing chemical warfare--being a scientist trapped you in the power plays of empire. Meanwhile, Einstein struggled to craft relativity and persuade the world that it was correct. This was, after all, the first complete revision of our conception of the universe since Isaac Newton, and its victory was far from sure.
Scientists seeking to confirm Einstein's ideas were arrested as spies. Technical journals were banned as enemy propaganda. Colleagues died in the trenches. Einstein was separated from his most crucial ally by barbed wire and U-boats. This ally was the Quaker astronomer and Cambridge don A. S. Eddington, who would go on to convince the world of the truth of relativity and the greatness of Einstein.
In May of 1919, when Europe was still in chaos from the war, Eddington led a globe-spanning expedition to catch a fleeting solar eclipse for a rare opportunity to confirm Einstein's bold prediction that light has weight. It was the result of this expedition--the proof of relativity, as many saw it--that put Einstein on front pages around the world. Matthew Stanley's epic tale is a celebration of how bigotry and nationalism can be defeated and of what science can offer when they are.
Author Notes
Matthew Stanley is a professor of the history of science at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. He holds degrees in history, astronomy, physics, and religion. He has published two academic books and has written for Physics Today , Physics World , and the Los Angeles Review of Books . He explains physics to non-scientists in his podcast What the If?!? and has appeared in documentaries on the History Channel, BBC, and NPR. Einstein's War is his first trade book.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Stanley (Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon), an NYU science history professor, places Einstein's theory of relativity in valuable historical context in this impressive work of popular science. A century after its formulation, the theory stands as "one of the essential pillars" of modern scientific knowledge; but initially, Stanley explains, it went largely unnoticed. Thanks to the closed borders and national hatreds of WWI, it was blocked from wide dissemination outside Germany, particularly in Britain, where all things German were regarded with suspicion. Stanley dramatically relates how, by chance, in 1916, a summary of Einstein's examination of time and space was received by one of the few British scientists both capable of and open to weighing the theory on its own merits, astronomer Stanley Eddington, who, like Einstein, was a pacifist and internationalist convinced that scientific discovery had no borders. He became the theory's champion, and in 1919 performed an experiment during a solar eclipse to verify that, as Einstein thought, light has weight. Stanley's well-told and impressively readable chronicle delivers a wider, and still relevant, message that how science is performed is inextricable from other aspects of people's lives. Agent: Jeff Shreve, the Science Factory. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A thrilling history of the development of the theory of relativity, "one of the essential pillars upholding our understanding of the universe."Despite Einstein's sole billing, this outstanding history/biography gives equal billing to Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), the British astronomer who championed relativity. This year is the 100th anniversary of the year when proof of his theory, largely engineered by Eddington, made Einstein (1879-1955) a scientific superstar. In his first book for a general audience, Stanley (History of Science/New York Univ. Gallatin School of Individualized Study; Huxley's Church and Maxwell's Demon: From Theistic Science to Naturalistic Science, 2014, etc.) chronicles the creation and acceptance of relativity against a background of the nasty nationalism of World War I. The author reminds readers that in 1905, Einstein described special relativity, a brilliant explanation of space, time, and motion. However, it did not explain accelerated motion, which includes gravity. Fixing that required years of labor, but Einstein succeeded in 1915 with general relativity. Einstein was a rare scientist among the warring nations who rejected often hateful patriotism. Eddington was another. Born a Quaker, he was a prodigy who studied at Cambridge and became a distinguished astronomer. As conscientious objectors, British Quakers suffered vicious persecution during the war, and it was only through the efforts of his superiors that he was spared. Eddington learned about relativity through a Dutch astronomer; intrigued, he became its leading British advocate. Few colleagues showed interest in theories of an obscure enemy scientist, but this did not prevent Eddington from initiating plans, even as the war raged, for the famous 1919 eclipse expedition. The author excels in explaining its surprisingly complex details, the tedious work required to tease out the minuscule bending of starlight that obeyed Einstein's prediction, and the still stunning explosion of adulation that resulted when results were announced.Stanley gives history priority over science. His explanation of general relativity will be a stretch for readers unfamiliar with college physics, but he delivers a superb account of Edison's and Eddington's spectacularly successful struggles to work and survive under miserable wartime conditions. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In Arthur Eddington known as the Father of Astrophysics historians discern intense curiosity, armed with mathematical acumen. But Stanley convincingly establishes here that neither Eddington's curiosity nor his mathematics could have forged a new science if Eddington's Quaker precepts had not kept his mind open to the theorizing of a stranger, Albert Einstein, living in a country waging war against his own. Readers will marvel at how Einstein formulates general relativity while nearly starving on wartime rations, yet steadfastly resisting the militarized hatreds sending young German colleagues to the trenches and severing contacts with colleagues in Allied countries. They will marvel, too, at how Eddington surmounts wartime Britain's fierce hostility toward German science as he embraces Einstein's theory and then evangelizes for it. The depth of Eddington's commitment to Einstein's theory comes through in the riveting account of how this brilliant astronomer, who narrowly avoids Britain's ever-widening net of conscription, sails to Principe in the Gulf of Guinea, where his observation of a full solar eclipse confirms Einstein's prediction about gravity bending light, so rendering Newtonian formulas obsolete. Dissecting the debate over whether philosophical attraction to Einstein's views caused Eddington to skew his Principe data, Stanley affirms both the empirical integrity and the political bravery of this Briton's confirmation of a German's theory. The international human drama in epoch-making science.--Bryce Christensen Copyright 2019 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Stanley (history of science, New York Univ.; What the If? podcast) tells the story of how Albert Einstein's theory of relativity became known and accepted around the world in this engaging text. When Einstein published his general theory of relativity in 1915, it was already one year into the Great War that would cause unimaginable death tolls in Europe. During World War I, from 1914 to 1918, it was illegal for scientists outside of Germany to spread or attempt to prove Einstein's work because he was a German citizen. After the war, though, astronomer Arthur Eddington traveled the world attempting to view a solar eclipse in order to prove the theory of relativity. During these trips, Eddington spoke openly about how Einstein's work would change the way humans understand the universe. After Eddington proved Einstein's theory, scientists finally acknowledged Einstein's contributions and he garnered critical acclaim. Because he has a deep understanding of the history of science, Stanley is able to convey the concepts discussed throughout in meaningful and accessible language. VERDICT Fans of popular science, Einstein, physics, and World War I will find this to be entertaining and informative.-Jason L. Steagall, formerly with Gateway Technical Coll. Lib., Elkhorn, WI © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
