Gordin, Michael D. (Author)
British Journal for the History of Science
Volume: 55
Issue: 2
Pages: 145-165
This paper explores the significant – albeit little-known – impact that physicist Albert Einstein's theory of relativity had on the development of the science of linguistics. Both Max Talmey, a physician who played a key role in the development of early twentieth-century constructed-language movements, and Benjamin Lee Whorf, who is closely associated with the notion of ‘linguistic relativity’, drew on their understanding of relativity to develop their ideas (and, in Talmey's case, also on his personal relationship with Einstein). Linguistic relativity, which posits that humans’ linguistic categories shape their perceptions of nature, has often been tied to ‘relativism’ in the social sciences and humanities. In contrast, Talmey's commitment to reformulating the language of Einsteinian relativity – especially through a constructed language he built in the 1920s and 1930s – emphasized the significance of ‘invariance’ simultaneously in the scientific doctrine and in the language in which it was discussed. The semiotic flexibility of Einstein's ‘relativity theory’ as it was widely (and wildly) appropriated outside the small community of theoretical physicists enabled the two opposing moves, while obscuring the historical linkage between physics and linguistics for both.
...MoreSimilar Citations
Book
Galina Weinstein;
(2015)
Einstein's Pathway to the Special Theory of Relativity
(/isis/citation/CBB495363061/)
Article
Giulio Peruzzi;
Alessio Rocci;
(2019)
Quantum Cultures during the Prehistory of Quantum Gravity: Léon Rosenfeld's Early Contributions to Quantum Gravity
(/isis/citation/CBB959398801/)
Article
Schroer, Bert;
(2013)
The Einstein-Jordan Conundrum and Its Relation to Ongoing Foundational Research in Local Quantum Physics
(/isis/citation/CBB001212075/)
Article
Dongen, Jeroen van;
(2007)
Emil Rupp, Albert Einstein, and the Canal Ray Experiments on Wave-Particle Duality: Scientific Fraud and Theoretical Bias
(/isis/citation/CBB000850132/)
Article
Dongen, Jeroen van;
(2007)
Reactionaries and Einstein's Fame: “German Scientists for the Preservation of Pure Science,” Relativity, and the Bad Nauheim Meeting
(/isis/citation/CBB000780203/)
Article
Mário Bacelar Valente;
(2018)
Einstein's Redshift Derivations: Its History from 1907 to 1921
(/isis/citation/CBB185643050/)
Article
Pyenson, Lewis;
(2013)
The Einstein-Picasso Question: Neo-Idealist Abstraction in the Decorative Arts and Manufactures
(/isis/citation/CBB001212588/)
Article
Navarro, Luis;
Pérez, Enric;
(2006)
Paul Ehrenfest: The Genesis of the Adiabatic Hypothesis, 1911--1914
(/isis/citation/CBB000670059/)
Chapter
Dolling, Lisa M.;
(2008)
Practical Arrangements and Fictitious Use: Bohr's Photon Box
(/isis/citation/CBB000953880/)
Article
Brown, Paul Tolliver;
(2009)
Relativity, Quantum Physics, and Consciousness in Virginia Woolf's “To the Lighthouse”
(/isis/citation/CBB001320696/)
Book
Batterson, Steve;
(2006)
Pursuit of Genius: Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study
(/isis/citation/CBB000741532/)
Book
Pietro Greco;
(2020)
Quanti. La straordinaria storia della meccanica quantistica
(/isis/citation/CBB247197978/)
Book
Jürgen Renn;
Hanoch Gutfreund;
(2020)
Einstein on Einstein: Autobiographical and Scientific Reflections
(/isis/citation/CBB067633963/)
Book
Lindley, David;
(2007)
Uncertainty: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr, and the Struggle for the Soul of Science
(/isis/citation/CBB000774697/)
Article
Yves Gingras;
(2015)
The Creative Power of Formal Analogies in Physics: The Case of Albert Einstein
(/isis/citation/CBB268409985/)
Article
Jeroen van Dongen;
(2021)
String theory, Einstein, and the identity of physics: Theory assessment in absence of the empirical
(/isis/citation/CBB982280233/)
Chapter
Stefano Bordoni;
(2009)
Discrete Models for Electromagnetic Radiation: J.J. Thomson and Einstein
(/isis/citation/CBB519434910/)
Article
Joël Dolbeault;
(2018)
Einstein et l’univers-bloc
(/isis/citation/CBB905178751/)
Book
Rigden, John S.;
(2005)
Einstein 1905: The Standard of Greatness
(/isis/citation/CBB000500205/)
Chapter
Fröhlich, Jürg;
(2008)
Einstein and h: Advances in Quantum Mechanics
(/isis/citation/CBB000820132/)
Be the first to comment!