In the 1920s, intellectuals of all stripes tried to assimilate the disproof of Newton into some new version of modernity that would take relativity into account. This was entirely unsuccessful.pic.twitter.com/3cvH7nVCyI
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Mathematical physicist and mentor to mathematically talented youth. Talent is that which bridges the gap between what can be taught and what must be learned.
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In the 1920s, intellectuals of all stripes tried to assimilate the disproof of Newton into some new version of modernity that would take relativity into account. This was entirely unsuccessful.pic.twitter.com/3cvH7nVCyI
Meanwhile, popular faith in rationality, in modernity, in the world making sense, had already been profoundly shaken by the Great War, just ended. “Lights all askew in the heavens” was understood as more of the same: confirmation of cosmic senselessness. https://meaningness.com/systems-crisis-breakdown …pic.twitter.com/RSFHNMSceK
The 1919 announcement that SCIENTISTS PROVE WORLD MAKES NO SENSE was a Big Deal in a way we have forgotten. It was misappropriated as a totem of nebulosity in general. Anti-rationalists seized it as justification for the general relativity of all truth. https://www.britannica.com/science/relativity/Experimental-evidence-for-general-relativity …pic.twitter.com/N2r784Vi43
It is hard now to understand relativity as disproof of scientific rationality because the current scientistic-rationalist worldview is profoundly different in form, as well as content, from that of the early 20th century. Logical positivism to the rescue! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_positivism …pic.twitter.com/IIzJXqTqmG
Logical positivism attempted to rescue scientistic rationalism from two deep wounds: general relativity and the crisis of the foundations of mathematics. It succeeded in rethinking science in a way that made relativity acceptable. Unfortunately, that was overshadowed by events…
It's perhaps worth mentioning that the popular response to Einstein's general relativity theory might have been different, had those who understood it best -- especially Hermann Weyl, but also Wolfgang Pauli -- devoted themselves to explaining its deeply classical essence.
Weyl, above all, understood that the geometry of spacetime in general relativity is profoundly similar to the geometry of Euclid, as revealed in the penetrating exegesis of Weyl's great mentor, Hilbert. Spacetime geometry, like Euclidean geometry, is built of many coherent parts.
It is a sad accident that Weyl, a truly great master of extraordinary depth and erudition, lacked the elegant talent for self-expression that so distinguished Henri Poincaré. Had Weyl been both able and inclined to emulate the great Frenchman, things might have been different.
But Weyl the stylist, as he himself confessed somewhat ruefully, was most influenced not by Poincaré but by Hegel. So the very man best equipped to de-mystify general relativity was rendered unintelligible by the very literary-philosophical tradition that enabled him to grasp it.
I add that, long before the lights went all askew, Poincaré had argued very clearly and explicitly for a profound revision of the whole conception of how Euclidean geometry relates to the geometry of physical space. Einstein frankly acknowledged how deeply this influenced him.
And long before Poincaré, Riemann had urged an even more profound reconception of the relation of geometry to physics, whose complete appreciation eluded everyone prior to Weyl (including Einstein, remarkably enough.) In a sense, we ought to have been preparing for GR since 1854.
The proper place to look for enlightenment on all this is in this extraordinary essay by Howard Stein, than which there is no greater living master on these subtle and fascinating matters: http://bit.ly/2Cz6Ype
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