Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Part One Reference Frame Columns, Physics Today 1988–2009
- 1 What's wrong with this Lagrangean, April 1988
- 2 What's wrong with this library, August 1988
- 3 What's wrong with these prizes, January 1989
- 4 What's wrong with this pillow, April 1989
- 5 What's wrong with this prose, May 1989
- 6 What's wrong with these equations, October 1989
- 7 What's wrong with these elements of reality, June 1990
- 8 What's wrong with these reviews, August 1990
- 9 What's wrong with those epochs, November 1990
- 10 Publishing in Computopia, May 1991
- 11 What's wrong with those grants, June 1991
- 12 What's wrong in Computopia, April 1992
- 13 What's wrong with those talks, November 1992
- 14 Two lectures on the wave–particle duality, January 1993
- 15 A quarrel we can settle, December 1993
- 16 What's wrong with this temptation, June 1994
- 17 What's wrong with this sustaining myth, March 1996
- 18 The golemization of relativity, April 1996
- 19 Diary of a Nobel guest, March 1997
- 20 What's wrong with this reading, October 1997
- 21 How not to create tigers, August 1999
- 22 What's wrong with this elegance, March 2000
- 23 The contemplation of quantum computation, July 2000
- 24 What's wrong with these questions, February 2001
- 25 What's wrong with this quantum world, February 2004
- 26 Could Feynman have said this? May 2004
- 27 My life with Einstein, December 2005
- 28 What has quantum mechanics to do with factoring? April 2007
- 29 Some curious facts about quantum factoring, October 2007
- 30 What's bad about this habit, May 2009
- Part Two Shedding Bad Habits
- Part Three More from Professor Mozart
- Part Four More to be Said
- Part Five Some People I've Known
- Part Six Summing it Up
- Index
18 - The golemization of relativity, April 1996
from Part One - Reference Frame Columns, Physics Today 1988–2009
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2016
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface
- Part One Reference Frame Columns, Physics Today 1988–2009
- 1 What's wrong with this Lagrangean, April 1988
- 2 What's wrong with this library, August 1988
- 3 What's wrong with these prizes, January 1989
- 4 What's wrong with this pillow, April 1989
- 5 What's wrong with this prose, May 1989
- 6 What's wrong with these equations, October 1989
- 7 What's wrong with these elements of reality, June 1990
- 8 What's wrong with these reviews, August 1990
- 9 What's wrong with those epochs, November 1990
- 10 Publishing in Computopia, May 1991
- 11 What's wrong with those grants, June 1991
- 12 What's wrong in Computopia, April 1992
- 13 What's wrong with those talks, November 1992
- 14 Two lectures on the wave–particle duality, January 1993
- 15 A quarrel we can settle, December 1993
- 16 What's wrong with this temptation, June 1994
- 17 What's wrong with this sustaining myth, March 1996
- 18 The golemization of relativity, April 1996
- 19 Diary of a Nobel guest, March 1997
- 20 What's wrong with this reading, October 1997
- 21 How not to create tigers, August 1999
- 22 What's wrong with this elegance, March 2000
- 23 The contemplation of quantum computation, July 2000
- 24 What's wrong with these questions, February 2001
- 25 What's wrong with this quantum world, February 2004
- 26 Could Feynman have said this? May 2004
- 27 My life with Einstein, December 2005
- 28 What has quantum mechanics to do with factoring? April 2007
- 29 Some curious facts about quantum factoring, October 2007
- 30 What's bad about this habit, May 2009
- Part Two Shedding Bad Habits
- Part Three More from Professor Mozart
- Part Four More to be Said
- Part Five Some People I've Known
- Part Six Summing it Up
- Index
Summary
“Two Experiments that ‘Proved’ Relativity” is Chapter 2 of The Golem: What Everyone should Know about Science. This prize-winning book of essays by the sociologists Harry Collins and Trevor Pinch is at the center of an ongoing debate between scientists and those who study science. In Chapter 2, Collins and Pinch use examples from the history of relativity to show the lay reader how they believe science reaches its conclusions. Here I use their essay to show readers of Physics Today how I believe Collins and Pinch reach theirs.
The two experiments are the Michelson–Morley experiment and the Eddington solar eclipse expedition of 1919. I learned a lot about both from Collins and Pinch, but I found unconvincing the lessons about the nature of science they draw from these studies of relativity. I focus on their treatment of the Michelson–Morley experiment, and how it bears on the acceptance of special relativity by the scientific community.
The presentation of relativity in The Golem starts with a peculiar statement of the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light: “Einstein's insight [was] that light must travel at the same speed in all directions.”
This is the kind of simplification anyone might make in presenting a technical matter to the lay reader. But this particular reformulation of the postulate that the speed of light is independent of the speed of the source also happens to reinforce the view that Collins and Pinch develop—that doubts about the Michelson–Morley result put at risk the logical foundations of relativity.
The lay reader is told little about the actual content of special relativity. Time dilation and length contraction are briefly mentioned. The inclination everybody has on a first hearing—to regard these phenomena as outlandish—is heightened by qualifications such as “if Einstein's ideas are correct” and “if the theory is correct.” To this touch of skepticism Collins and Pinch add a dash of moral indignation by also mentioning the “sinister” mass–energy relation and the explosion of the atomic bomb. The bomb is cited as an incontrovertible piece of evidence for the validity of relativity. No other compelling evidence is offered.
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- Why Quark Rhymes with PorkAnd Other Scientific Diversions, pp. 124 - 130Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016