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Full Description
This volume offers a selection of the best contributions by Russian
scholars--historians and philosophers of science--to the Einstein
Studies industry, broadly construed. Most of the papers included here
were first published in Russian in the 'Einshteinovskiy Sbornik'
series (Einstein Studies), the first of its kind, and initiated in
1966 by Nobel Prize winner Igor Tamm. From 1966-1990, fourteen volumes
of the 'Sbornik' were published by Nauka, the chief academic publisher
in the former Soviet Union.
The book explores such topics as the historical and foundational
issues in general relativity and relativistic cosmology, Einstein's
contributions to quantum theory of radiation, and the rise of Dirac's
quantum electrodynamics. The volume also includes a detailed
description of the physics colloquium Einstein established and
coordinated in 1912-1914 in Zurich.
The contributors draw extensively on documentation previously
unavailable to most scholars. Thus the materials from various Russian
archives shed new light on the famous exchange (regarding the first
evolutionary cosmological models) between Einstein and Aleksandr
Friedmann in the early 1920s and on the role of Boris Podolsky and
Vladimir Fock in the emergence of quantum electrodynamics. The little-
known correspondence between Einstein and a famous German pilot Paul
Ehrhardt suggests that, during World War I, Einstein was involved with
aero- and hydrodynamics and thought about ways of improving airfoil
design. Other articles discuss new approaches to important questions
in the foundations of general relativity and cosmology.
Historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science should be
prepared to find much new and unexpected material in this engaging
volume presenting the best of the recent Russian scholarship in the
field. The book will be accessible to the general reader as well.
Contents
Einstein and Friedmann.- The Problem of Conservation Laws and the Poincaré Quasigroup in General Relativity.- The Role Played by Mach's Ideas in the Genesis of the General Theory of Relativity.- Hermann Weyl and Large Numbers in Relativistic Cosmology.- Laws of Physics and the Universe.- Vsevolod Frederiks, Pioneer of Relativism and Liquid Crystal Physics.- Einstein's Fluctuation Formula and the Wave—Particle Duality.- Dirac's Quantum Electrodynamics.- Einstein's Zurich Colloquium.- "What May Happen to a Man Who Thinks a Great Deal but Reads Very Little".
