This paper addresses and proposes to resolve a longstanding problem in the philosophy of physics: whether and in what sense Albert Einstein’s Chasing the Light thought experiment was significant in the development of the theory of special relativity. Although Einstein granted this thought experiment pride of place in his 1949 Autobiographical Notes, philosophers and physicists continue to debate about what, if anything, the experiment establishes. I claim that we ought to think of Chasing the Light as Einstein’s first attempt to problematize the very idea of the electromagnetic ether frame, and that it thereby contributed to his eventual adoption of one of special relativity’s two foundational axioms: the “light postulate”. This interpretation requires the assumption that Einstein had presupposed special relativity’s other axiom, the “principle of relativity”, when initially considering Chasing the Light. This argument is novel insofar as it provides evidence that such a presupposition by Einstein is both conceptually and historically plausible. Moreover, this paper directly challenges John D. Norton’s compelling claim that Chasing the Light is best understood as a refutation of emission theories of light propagation; while both interpretations of the experiment are conceptually coherent, I argue that the interpretation found in this paper is supported more straightforwardly by historical evidence.
...More
Article
Janssen, Michel;
(2002)
Reconsidering a Scientific Revolution: The Case of Einstein versus Lorentz
(/isis/citation/CBB000642049/)
Article
Torretti, Roberto;
(2007)
Getting Rid of the Ether: Could Physics Have Achieved It Sooner, with Better Assistance from Philosophy?
(/isis/citation/CBB000933625/)
Article
Paweł Polak;
(2016)
Philosophy in science – a case of a reception of special and general theory of relativity in Kraków and Lwów before 1925 / Filozofia w nauce – studium przypadku recepcji szczególnej i ogólnej teorii względności w Krakowie oraz we Lwowie przed rokiem 1925
(/isis/citation/CBB510143275/)
Article
Clara Bradley;
(2021)
The Non-equivalence of Einstein and Lorentz
(/isis/citation/CBB362396381/)
Article
Bokulich, Alisa;
(2008)
Paul Dirac and the Einstein-Bohr Debate
(/isis/citation/CBB000831776/)
Article
Hayes, Peter;
(2010)
Popper's Response to Dingle on Special Relativity and the Problem of the Observer
(/isis/citation/CBB001024229/)
Book
Hanoch Gutfreund;
Jürgen Renn;
(2017)
The Formative Years of Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's Princeton Lectures
(/isis/citation/CBB024679698/)
Article
Hon, Giora;
Goldstein, Bernard R.;
(2006)
Symmetry and Asymmetry in Electrodynamics from Rowland to Einstein
(/isis/citation/CBB000771892/)
Article
Giannetto, Enrico R. A.;
(2009)
The Electromagnetic Conception of Nature at the Root of the Special and General Relativity Theories and Its Revolutionary Meaning
(/isis/citation/CBB001032842/)
Article
Olivier Darrigol;
(2021)
Can we trust Einstein’s accounts of the genesis of special relativity?
(/isis/citation/CBB336192597/)
Book
Vanja V. Malloy;
(2018)
Dimensionism: Modern Art in the Age of Einstein
(/isis/citation/CBB753306396/)
Article
Abiko, Seiya;
(2003)
On Einstein's Distrust of the Electromagnetic Theory: The Origin of the Lightvelocity Postulate
(/isis/citation/CBB000340912/)
Article
Kennedy, W. L.;
(2005)
On Einstein's 1905 Electrodynamics Paper
(/isis/citation/CBB000501569/)
Article
Hagar, Amit;
(2008)
Length Matters: The Einstein--Swann Correspondence and the Constructive Approach to the Special Theory of Relativity
(/isis/citation/CBB000933673/)
Article
Santos, Gildo Magalhães;
(2011)
A Debate on Magnetic Current: The Troubled Einstein--Ehrenhaft Correspondence
(/isis/citation/CBB001024707/)
Essay Review
Antonio A. P. Videira;
(2017)
Neither Einstein nor Bergson, but Both!
(/isis/citation/CBB468477048/)
Book
Howard, Don;
Stachel, John;
(2000)
Einstein: The formative years, 1879-1909
(/isis/citation/CBB000110592/)
Article
Nayla Farouki;
Philippe Grangier;
(2021)
The Einstein–Bohr Debate: Finding a Common Ground of Understanding?
(/isis/citation/CBB652432331/)
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/)
Book
Wazeck, Milena;
(2009)
Einsteins Gegner: die öffentliche Kontroverse um die Relativitätstheorie in den 1920er Jahren
(/isis/citation/CBB001022043/)
Be the first to comment!