I choose as my object of study the Theory of Special Relativity, for a few reasons. Relativity in physics was spearheaded by Albert Einstein, a popular cultural icon who brought science to the public’s doorstep with his philosophy of accessibility, and endearing – and irreverent! – character. Einstein is also saluted for his humanitarian position, especially with respect to his work in pacifism. The human element in the story of relativity is an enticement to explore the theory’s roots and foundations; the uniqueness of its popularity draws particular attention to the fact that students of physics learn little about the context of the science they study. One of the pillar tenets of modern physics, the theory of relativity is thus a useful and important illustration of the socio-historic aspect of science as the condition for the possibility of scientists to do their work.

Perhaps the most basic reason for my choice is that the Theory of Special Relativity marks the beginning of the relativity revolution in physics. Revolution means a change in perspective. A change in perspective is like a change of location: the old perspective comes into view, and can be examined. In this examination, we can come to understand the nature of our understanding as necessarily a choice. Thomas Kuhn’s analysis of the scientific revolution describes this choice as one between paradigms. With multiple paradigms in view, a situation may find us accepting, if only for a moment, the possibility of other valid ways of seeing, other ways of understanding, other ways of knowing. At the end of the nineteenth century, physical phenomena were defying Newtonian theory. Because Newton’s model of the physical world represents such a broad range of phenomena, it was assumed to represent all of reality. Relativity proved Newton’s world view flawed, and the theory therefore marks a fundamental shift in the way science, and hence Western culture, understands the nature of the universe.

The theory of relativity challenges our most basic assumptions in physics – our concepts of space and time. An exposition of the genesis of relativity can thus make bold statements about the scientific method and the nature of scientific enterprise. Extending the concept of physical covariance in reference frames to the process of coming to know the world from different perspectives may provide a valuable lesson for educators and students of physics. In other words, Einstein’s radical reinterpretation of concepts like length, time and mass – as creations of the relationship between observer and event – can point up a similar possibility of reinterpretation of the process of learning about the physical world in general. Special relativity says that in “reality” the world is not describable by one truth, but many truths, all with equal validity. I wish to apply this premise to the big picture, to the way in which that world is learned about and taught.

PART I: The Story of Special Relativity

Einstein was born into a family that challenged authority. His father, Hermann Einstein, did not participate in the orthodox Jewish community of which his family was a part. A whimsical attitude toward life meant his family moved often as he transferred from one European centre to another in search of work. Young Albert resented the constant motion, but more unbearable was being left behind in the rigid public school system of Germany when the family moved (yet again) to Italy. He dropped out and traveled across the Alps to rejoin them. Uncle Jacob’s lessons were more conducive to his style of learning. He taught Albert mathematics and physics, encouraging him to write in such a way that many people, with varying levels of scientific knowledge, could understand.

In 1896, Einstein began studies at the Eidgenössiche Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich, Switzerland. Being in Zurich was crucial to Einstein’s development as a human being. The free atmosphere, unusual student body, and excellent teachers at the ETH transformed Zurich into a Mecca for young intellectuals from all over Europe. Zurich became not only a centre for schools of medicine, (which attracted women intellectuals, not permitted to study in universities in their home countries), but also the heart of the great social movement, drawing Russian socialist exiles. The surge of young scholars from a diversity of backgrounds decomposed the strength of any cultural heritage in Zurich, but at the same time it ushered in an era of revolution. The political-intellectual climate was reflected in radical social legislation; the political-emotional climate by direct government participation by citizens who were not particularly interested in pursuing wealth. For the first time, western physicians found themselves open to knowledge offered by psychoanalysis. Surrealism was as prominent in art as Marxism was in politics. Operating in this isoemotional line was the counter-community of scientists, with relativity in physics riding the wave of revolution.

Among Einstein’s greatest influences were his peers. Three of the most prominent were Rosa Luxemburg from Germany, Alexandra Kollontay from Russia and Florence Kelly from the United States. Luxemburg was the most original thinker of the German Social democratic movement. Einstein greatly respected her work, having had personal uncertainties about his own German citizenship. She was later murdered for her radical activism, and Einstein claimed that Luxemburg was too good for this world. Kollontay, a Luxemburg admirer, was Einstein’s contemporary. She challenged sexual absolutes in theories of free love, reconstruction of the family and the new woman. Later she became leader for the workers’ opposition in the Soviet Union and ambassadors to Norway and Mexico. Kelly later became the first chief state factory inspector in the United States.

Perhaps the closest intellectual companion to Einstein was Friedrich Adler, a devout Marxist with a saintly persona who found spiritual and ideological satisfaction in physics. His fusion of Machian philosophy (in his critique of the kinetic theory of heat) and Marxist politics (Engels’ polemic against mechanical materialism) was the first to have substantial scientific back-up. He thus performed a successful cross-over of disciplines and concepts that served as models for each other, clarifying each others’ properties and tendencies.

Surrounded by the culture of revolution and sparked by the intellectual electricity running through Zurich at the end of the nineteenth century, Einstein was poised for the leap he would make into physical relativity. The spirit of that culture found its inspiration in Ernst Mach, the grandfather of the relativist standpoint. According to Einstein, Mach had “forged the instruments for the psychological emancipation of a generation of young scientists... ‘through his historical-critical writings in which he traces the development of the special sciences with so much devotion and where he pursues the path-breaking scientists to the inner recesses of their brain chambers.’” [1] The psychological origins of his thought led him to a perspective of the fluidity of the world. Mach’s spiritual sensitivity allowed him to experience his perspective (i.e.; the world) as one coherent manifold of sensations. A troubled youth, he related all of his revolutionary contributions to scientific method to childhood experience. His insight into causality, for example, was attributed to watching the workings of a windmill. “I saw how the cogs on the axle engaged with the cogs which drive the mill-stones, how one tooth pushed on the other; and, from that time on, it became quite clear to me that all is not connected with all.” [2] He saw in the concept of cause an arbitrary authority that smacked of artificiality. The sexual hierarchy of the time – of man over woman – likewise held no truth, except that of a random relationship of power which Mach despised. His relativistic conception of space and time was a product of what he considered the mechanistic myth of the history of thought, where “determinations of time are merely abbreviated statements of the dependence of one event upon another, and nothing more.” [3] Mach appreciated Buddhism and the denial of the self, and experienced emotional liberation in his realization of the world as dependent on the sensations of the observer.

For a time Mach worked as a cabinet maker, which was the perfect opportunity for the mind to be freed from goal-oriented scientific inquiry. The labourer’s standpoint can here be seen to be epistemologically valuable (Marx would say epistemologically advantaged). Einstein’s similar experience in the patent office in Berne provided him with the labourer’s standpoint, one that allowed his mind freer reign in the area of theoretical physics.

The most ground-breaking science in the end of the nineteenth century was predominantly the work of young Jewish students, who were in rebellion against the archaic traditional Jewish environment. Their skeptical world view prompted them to ask the questions that lay outside established science. So what were young women and men, politically and socially charged, in revolt against the establishment, to do, but form their own club? The Olympia Academy was founded by Conrad Habicht, Maurice Solovine and Albert Einstein, while Einstein was a third-class clerk in the Swiss patent office in Berne. Other Academy members were Paul Habicht, Michele Angelo Besso and Marcel Grossmann. The group enjoyed the radical quality of having women members; many of the young men’s wives were also politically and philosophically inclined students of mathematics and physics. The young scientists would get together for “strong talk and weak tea.” [4] A productive body, the Academy’s work was of great influence and intellectual import. Einstein, treasurer and organizer of the Olympia Academy, said later that he would have perished intellectually were it not for the Zurich-Berne circle.

Mileva Maric, a young Serbian student, was the fifth woman to attend ETH. Gifted in mathematics, art, music and physics, Maric aced the entrance exams that Einstein initially failed, and continued throughout her scholastic career to oust him in all areas of study. She was on better terms with Weber, their physics professor and, believing in his potential as a physicist, often acted as a go-between for Einstein. The couple attended Minkowski’s lectures together, and their romance began, as academic partners. Correspondence between the two reveals Maric, in Einstein’s eyes, as an independent woman, his equal in every respect.

Their relationship was not without tension. Neither Maric’s nor Einstein’s family approved of the partnership. When Maric became unexpectedly pregnant, she was forced to abandon her studies and return to Serbia; she and Einstein did not have the finances to get married and start a family. After having to give up her child, she made plans to rejoin Einstein, who wanted them to continue to study science together in spite of the deviance in lifestyle from cultural norms. Together they worked on Einstein’s theory of time. Those first few years of marriage were Einstein’s most productive. Maric was responsible for the mathematics in Einstein’s first three papers (on special relativity, Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect); they were originally signed by both Einstein and Maric. Perhaps the most controversial evidence for co-authorship of the theory of special relativity is phrased in a letter to Maric from Einstein: “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on relative motion to a victorious conclusion.” [5]

The euphoria did not last. Their younger son Eduard exhibited signs of mental instability, which Einstein saw as a weakness, a flaw in character. Maric refused to admit him into a mental hospital – she chose to look after him. Coupled with the family’s domestic needs that “naturally” fell to Maric, and while supporting Einstein’s work in physics with her expertise in mathematics, she watched her own career whither. Uncharacteristically, she failed her final exams twice. Einstein complained to friends that his wife’s gloom and moodiness was getting him down. He left Maric in 1914, but not before beginning intimate correspondence with Elsa, a cousin whom he later married and whom he described as being less of an intellectual burden than Maric. The scientist made little effort to be part of his son’s lives; he discouraged them from entering areas of applied (weaker) physics, and admitted Eduard into a mental hospital after Maric’s death.

PART II: Inspiration and the Scientific Imagination

In her book, Einstein’s Wife, Andrea Gabor outlines two categories of the intellectual character. These two personalities choose diverging intellectual paths with different challenges along their respective routes to success. One is guided by a single, monistic vision or inspiration that tends to be all-consuming. This is the personality attributed to the quintessential genius, a person totally dedicated to one way of being. The other personality type celebrates diverse and often contradictory interests and perspectives, with a mind that moves on many planes at once, noticing everything and sometimes torn by varied interests.

Employing Gabor’s model to interpret the Einstein-Maric story is not an attempt to categorize the intellectual couple and play one type off another as better- or worse-than. What can be seen from the story is the asymmetry of paths available to each Maric and Einstein. To flourish as a monistic-type intellectual is nearly impossible for a woman because of the powerful social pressure to, at the very least, wrap career around family. This bifurcation is evidenced where we see Maric dedicating her intellectual expertise to her husband’s career, on top of taking responsibility for the well-being of the family. That Einstein was a lousy husband and father was not because he was a bad person, but because he was consumed by his intellectual ambitions. “I’m not a family man,” he confessed after his marriage to Elsa. “I want to know how God created this world...I want to know his thoughts; the rest are details.” It seems the dedicated physicist and humanitarian was relatively uninterested in the world and people around him.

We may be tempted by this exposition of Einstein’s married family life to renounce the great scientist as a selfish careerist who took credit for a discovery that was obviously a collaborative effort. We might even refute his contribution to the world of physics as progress carried out on the back of an oppressed individual: the discoverer’s wife, no less. Whatever truths might be found in those last statements is not the intent of this paper, however. What I feel is a more interesting and important project is a revelation of the way this story is appropriated by today’s scientific community. How do we tell the story of relativity? What can that tell us about the way we – students and teachers of physics – learn about our own chosen field of study?

Biographies about Einstein make only brief mention of his first wife; when they do they are usually unfavorable. (I recall doing a presentation on the life of the great scientist. Maric was without fail characterized as a “dark cloud,” or even mentally unstable.) Einstein’s wife is not granted status of academic partner in historical accounts; in fact, Gabor charges biographers with actively leaving Maric out of the story. When Maric and Einstein’s sons and daughter tried to publish a book based on letters between their parents, they were stopped by the scientist’s executors. This alerts us to the power of social forces in reconstructing history, which inevitably skew the narrative. Perpetuation of this narrative, the one with woman-as-at-best-peripheral does an injustice to the story of physics. There is a more truthful account of the contribution made by Einstein’s life partner (and perhaps intellectual superior) to one of the most important ideas in physics in the last century. A reorganization of our conception of the history of science to include such an account might open the psychological door to individuals who have previously been discouraged by the story of a woman-less (even woman-unfriendly) discipline.

“‘The spirit of a time is probably a fact as objective as any fact in natural science.’” (Heisenberg quoted in Feuer, p. 53) Einstein’s leap of genius in his suggested solution to the Michaelson-Morley experiment (more about this in Part III) was simply a wise adherence to his belief in trusting empirical data, in trusting the results of experiment; the relationship between fact and theory is only conditionally stable. Logically, there is a flaw in assuming absolutism with respect to making assertions about things in themselves. All concepts, regardless of their proximity to experience, are freely chosen. It was not only logic, however, that motivated the discovery of relativity. Much of Einstein’s work was rejected by contemporary physicists who were not appreciative of the extra-logical and socio-logical considerations, typical of Einstein’s mode of thought, that led to the development of the concept. The strong foundation of Machian philosophy and the support of a community of like-minded intellectual peers make the source of Einstein’s “obvious” answer not so elusive.

It is pertinent at this point to be reminded exactly what it was that Einstein was being so revolutionary about. The mentality of his generation played a significant role in the development of the theory of relativity. However, upon closer examination, we see that “relativity” is a misnomer for the theory Einstein authored. It is no surprise that physics would come up with its own version of relativism, and no wonder that Einstein wanted his work to share emotional identification with the relativist school of thought; we would not accuse Einstein of false advertising, precisely for these reasons. But the fact is, the relativistic elements of the theory – that length, time and mass are not absolute – were consequences of the principle of invariance, an absolutist standpoint. The theory states that the laws of physics are the same for all inertial reference frames (non-inertial frames were added later in the Theory of General Relativity). Einstein himself indicated that the most appropriate name for his theory would have been the “principle of covariance.”

It turns out that strictly logical processes are not often the source of inspiration in scientific discovery. Superconductivity, for example, was a conceptual challenge to physicists: it was initially thought that no material could conduct electricity resistance-free at a feasible temperature. Some intermetallic compounds came close to superconductivity, but only at impractically low temperatures or high prices. Then a scientist named Müller discovered the superconductive property of ceramic oxides, created by an ancient technique, conveniently cheap to produce. The odd thing is that ceramic oxides are insulators, not conductors. Müller’s discovery seems counter-intuitive and arbitrary, but it was neither. The scientist had a personal attraction to perovskites, cubic arrangements that displayed the highest symmetry of seven possible crystal structures. His thematic commitment to these structures, complex illustrations of which can be found in some of the most ancient oriental spiritual texts, was what led him to believe them to be conducive to superconductivity. Even in other fields, Müller made use of the holiness he found in perovskites.

For anyone else, the association of ancient diagrams with superconductivity is at best random. But for Müller the connection made perfect sense. This brings into focus the role of arbitrariness in scientific pursuit. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions [4], Thomas Kuhn addresses the partiality that dictates the direction of scientific inquiry and investigates the nature of this seeming arbitrariness. What it is that makes something worth studying in the first place depends on what the scientist thinks is relevant. Strictly speaking, there is no logic in this decision; it is a matter of personal preference, a bias. However, arbitrariness is not necessarily illogical, especially in the field of science, where intuitions about what should act as foundational concepts are the shared intuitions of a community, whose members are trained to so intuit. Therefore, science and logic are not necessarily linked, only appropriately so. One such appropriation is in the interpretation of phenomena using a theory, or building a model. Theories turn information into facts that, previously, had not existed. However, scientists are not discoverers of things, but creators of meaning and significance. They are creators of connections between fact and theory.

Science is a method for revealing truth. But so is spiritual awareness, feeling, psychology, sociology, intuition, etc. In different situations, different combinations of various methodologies are appropriate. In a moment of clairvoyance while recovering from an illness, Heisenberg wrote down the system of equations that led to the principle of uncertainty, which would later be clarified using linear algebra, the powerful new mathematical tool at the time. Mach was inspired to explore physics from a phenomenological standpoint. Müller used his faith in symmetry as a shortcut to knowledge about superconductivity. The emotional climate of Einstein’s time fueled the theory of relativity. The role of emotion, it seems, cannot be erased from the story of scientific innovation. This makes sense: people do what they think is interesting or important. These human tendencies, motivated by curiosity and emotion (which I will jointly refer to as imagination) make up the nature of the vector of arbitrariness that points the direction the scientist takes in research. It is the scientific imagination that has the power to transform the world in which science operates.

PART III: The Scientific Revolution: A Kuhnian Analysis

Science is that which works. This is an inversion of the ordinary way of thinking about science, which is that things work because they are scientific. Like all disciplines, science has many fields, all of which operate on the same paradigm (or roughly so). Progress in any one field therefore is progress for all of science. Contrast this with other disciplines, where the fields into which they are divided compete, questioning each other’s foundations, progressing in their individual fields, but not as a whole. For example, we might say that the study of existential poetry is progressing but literature as a discipline does not progress. There are three assumptions in the understanding of science which contribute to its progressive nature:

1. There is one world.
2. The world is knowable; our sense organs can uniquely discern it.
3. Science will lead to the single true account of the world. [6]

A transformation in world view (by the imaginative scientist) occurs when her personal preference challenges the way in which science has oriented us to the world. The orientation Kuhn calls a paradigm; it is a network of concepts that the scientific community has adopted as the foundation of its work and belief system. It is a basis of truth. The overall acceptance, trust and faith in a paradigm allows for progress – from the perspective of those working within the paradigm, that is. A confrontation between the individual scientist and the current paradigm will have one of two outcomes. Either the individual’s idea will be squelched, or the foundations of normal science collapse, in which case we get what Kuhn calls a paradigm shift, a complete overhaul of the entire network of theories, facts, knowledge and assumptions that science has adopted until that point. (Hence the drama of the scientific revolution.) Relativity did this in 1905 with its redefinition of space and time, the two most fundamental concepts in science. Now that our ordinary understanding of the relationship between science and progress has been curiously inverted, the stage is set for explanation of some of the features of scientific methodology.

Scientists are insulated from the public. There are few demands put on scientists from non-scientists, and vice versa. The scientist does not have to sell himself or answer to a public in the same way an intellectual in another field might have to do. This frees the scientist for more efficient progress in his field.

The education of the scientist is rigid and formal, and generally identical for scientists across the board. The “cannon” of science is like that of no other discipline. Scientists-in-training receive the same technical knowledge; they solve the same kinds of problems; they draw the same conclusions, learning the same lessons; and there are rarely incompatible viewpoints. Until the graduate level, education is highly textbook-oriented. (However, I find the experimental sessions in post-secondary school immensely helpful. Mount Allison has adopted a new “experiential learning” program for its introductory physics classes which, by reports from all sides, yields positive results.) Even past the graduate level, rarely are students asked to consult original texts, but instead are assigned textbooks designed specifically for students. When supplementary research is assigned, it is only done so in the more advanced courses; even then it is only practical when the material is in close line with students’ regular texts. “Until the very last stages in the education of a scientist, textbooks are systematically substituted for the creative scientific literature that made them possible.” [7] This is because the highly esoteric nature of scientific literature is written from fields of study so intensely specialized that works are written almost exclusively for an audience of colleagues. Narrow, rigid education perpetuates the insulation of the scientist from the public, simultaneously training her in the most effective manner, one that will lead most efficiently to progress in her field.

With this in mind, it is a wonder that established science ever breaks free from its own paradigm. A researcher works in a field; he does not test the rules by which he works. Kuhn cites two factors that are necessary for such a break to occur. Paradigms occur usually when intense attention is paid to a problem, and by a mind not firmly rooted in the current paradigm. Youthful passion seems one candidate. Rebellion falls to the young, to those operating outside the established system.

When scientists find themselves in the position of having to decide between two fundamental ideas (no more than one interpretation of the world is permitted) the winning idea is labeled “progress” and earns its place in the Story of the Scientific Quest for Truth. The loser is forgotten. “Scientific education makes no use of an equivalent for the art museum or the library of classics, and the result is a sometimes drastic distortion in the scientist’s perception of his discipline’s past.” [8] The tree of scientific development is pruned to the trunk.

The choice between paradigms is made by a very specific community. The scientific community is one that is concerned with solving problems of nature and though globally-minded, scientists are mostly concerned with problems of detail. Solutions to those problems (or choices between ideas) are solutions that are accepted universally; they are not strictly personal. This community alone controls the rules of acceptance and rejection of scientific ideas. If there were no agreement between members of the scientific community, if the community were to admit incompatibility, uncomfortable questions would arise about the uniqueness of the truth that science unveils.

It can be concluded that science as a whole tailors itself for efficient progress. Its story reflects this efficiency: work which contributes to the development of the present bank of knowledge is categorized as the natural direction of progress... and then there are some myths, errors and superstitions mentioned. That story of progress is highly exclusive, not only of a non-scientific public, but also of progress of a scientific nature that does not fit the ordinary criteria of membership as conceptualized by the West. If granted their historical integrity, we find those “myths” and “errors” to have developed in much the same way as the theory and evidence we now call “scientific knowledge”. Until the publication of Einstein’s first three papers, the existence of ether was universally accepted. David Hilbert submitted the field equations for general relativity five days earlier than Einstein; the correct version eleven days later. His work falls under the “not-progress” category. Recently I attended a Buddhist retreat as a babysitter and the older attendees were delighted to find a student of physics in their midst so they could finally talk some “real Buddhism” – relativity theory that for them began 3000 years ago. The Western story of science, textbook history, is of primitive Africans, a huge portion of the world’s people who for one reason or another are not as scientifically advanced as the rest of us because of our European roots. However, Tanzanians produced carbon-steel 1800 years before it was “discovered” in Europe. Perfectly spherical crystal lenses found in Egypt indicate that Africans invented the telescope. The ruins of an astronomical observatory dating back to 300 BC were uncovered in Kenya; its builders possessed one of the most accurate pre-Christian calendars. In 1400 in West Africa the Dogon reported the rings of Saturn, the moons of Jupiter and the spiral structure of the Milky Way, as well as a small star, naked to the eye, which made an elliptical orbit around Sirius that took fifty years to complete. [9] These are only a few of the many stories that science does not accept into its narrative. My challenge is the following: Could science lose its teleology without losing face? Is there the possibility of an alternative view of scientific success, one whose story is more accessible to those whom, it can be argued, are just as deserving of the claim to knowledge and its benefits as today’s scientific community?

The result of textbook science is the concept of a linear, unidirectional, minimalistic account of rational human thought with none but the most “successful” contributions taken seriously. It is evident that if the scientific account claims to reveal the truth, the question must be asked: whose truths? The tendency in normal science is to assign the discovery of concepts to one figure. It is important to note who that ends up being (Leibniz, Newton, Einstein,...) – whose name gets written down on blackboards and in textbooks. If the project of science is progress, it must be asked: progress toward what? If the answer to that is: toward a greater understanding of the world, then we must simultaneously validate an historical account, or any other approach that likewise contributes to a greater understanding of the scientific truths of the world. The disadvantages to letting this happen? Less efficiency, slower progress, a more tenuous grip on the scientific mind. But the advantages might be worth it. If scientists function with respect to a fuller picture of the world, the culture that depends on the story they tell could benefit from a broader, wiser foundation for knowledge. Science students could study theory with a sense of origin and a truer account of the worlds of the persons whose work they emulate. Perhaps we will develop a sense of lessons learned, and an understanding (and acceptance) of the constant possibility of reshaping the scientific world view.

PART IV: Learning from Relativity Theory (the bigger picture)

People tend to forget how they learn. Once we learn how or why something works, especially if it jives with intuition, it seems we have always known it. It becomes taken for granted, and sometimes, if what we have learned becomes so integral a part of life that it sinks into invisibility, it becomes difficult even to describe. I recognize the problems this can pose for teachers. How do you teach about space and time? These fundamentals of the physical world are not easy to explain without using the concepts of space and time themselves in their definitions. Although it seems that Einstein complicated matters for those who wish to teach physics, I suggest the theory of relativity provides a unique opportunity for (soon-to-be) teachers to rethink their conceptualization of the physical world at the most basic levels. Learning how to learn again, we might gain insight into teaching.

Using feminist research methods, I will here study the process of studying relativity to explore some non-traditional (non-textbook) approaches to learning. The counterintuitive nature of some of the metaphysical implications of the theory of relativity makes it a good example for this purpose because I do not have a firm grasp on the consequences of the theory. It is always fun to study oneself – a reorientation of perspective to that of a self-objectification effectively adds dimensions to my world view, and might give me a more valuable picture with which to work.

Any attempt to explain the theory of relativity begins with a run-down of the Michaelson-Morley (M&M) experiment. This ingenious series of precise experiments were performed over fifteen years. The purpose of the experiment was to measure the speed of the earth with respect to the ether that filled space, and through which the earth travelled with respect to other planets and the stars. Since light is the propagation of the electromagnetic field (that can be everywhere), as proven by Maxwell’s equations, it is a wave. A wave needs a medium through which to move (otherwise, what is moving?). Ether was the name given to the medium through which light was believed to move. The apparatus had three long arms along which light, split in two perpendicular paths, would travel. One of the paths was along the direction of the rotation of the earth; another, perpendicular. At the end of those two arms were mirrors that reflected the light back. The reflected light was sent in parallel beams down the third arm where it entered a telescope and was projected on a screen. The small difference in speed of the two beams would create an interference pattern. The entire apparatus was then rotated by ninety degrees and the experiment performed over again. This time the interference pattern should be equal and opposite, creating a pattern offset to the original, since the light beam originally travelling perpendicular to the earth (which should, classically, take less time) would now have a longer trip, and vice versa.

No discrepancy was found between the two interference patterns. The null result was not accepted by Michaelson and Morley, who refined the experiment to incredible accuracy. It was taken for granted that the problem lay in the nature of their experiment. Lorentz suggested that there was nothing wrong with the experiment; that matter, and therefore the apparatus, shrank by a factor of due to its electrical structure. French mathematician Poincaré was suspicious: isn’t this just a bit too convenient? That matter should shrink by just enough to make the math work? (The value Lorentz suggested was the value used in the original calculations to determine the speed of the earth with respect to ether.) It also raised the problem that if matter shrank in accordance with the Lorentz transformation for space, then time should shrink as well, to be consistent with the meaning of the Lorentz transformation as a mapping of motion through space and time. Lorentz’s response was that the “deviation” in time was artificial time, with no physical meaning. What it did mean was that the math agreed with experimental results.

Here’s where Einstein came on the scene. He said: there’s no conspiracy – nature is not trying to confuse us and make us doubt our experiment and the mathematics, which work just fine. What there are problems with, gentlemen, are the rules we have set up for observing nature. The possibility for misinterpretation lies in the logical gap between fact and theory, when our models of the universe become more real than phenomena, than the experimental data they are meant to explain. The flaws must exist in the physics, and they must exist on the most fundamental level: with our conceptions of length and time. From these three concepts, all other observables may be derived.

To solve the problem, Einstein insisted on a very simple idea, but one that is also very difficult to believe. He said: the only thing we can afford to trust is the result of experiment. Anything else, and we are making too many assumptions. The idea of an omniscient observer who can see what is “really” going on in the universe, who is aware of all motion, is false; all observers, if human, are firmly situated and unaware of their motion. This means that the idealistic notion of absolute time must be discarded for the practical notion of time – “taking into account the inevitable necessity of using signals in order to set clocks which are at a distance from each other, and that the arrival of the signals at their destinations are influenced by our state of motion, of which we are unaware” [10] (my emphasis). And since motion (because we just might not know about it!) prevents necessary agreement in setting clocks, the consequence is that there likewise can be no agreement about measuring length. Length becomes not a fact about an object but a relationship between observer and object.

Einstein then laid out what could be said about the facts of M&M, without making any assumptions.

1. It is impossible to measure the speed of the earth in ether. The experiment confirmed that we are unaware of our velocity with respect to the ether.
2. The speed of light is the same, independent of the motion of the source. (The velocity of sound travelling in air is independent (for the most part) of the velocity of its source; the same holds for light, also a wave.)

The contradiction between these two statements is not obvious right away. To resolve this difficulty once and for all, let’s pretend I go off into space to watch a photon travel to the earth. I can see the absolute motion of the earth, and I can see the motion of the photon, which is traveling in the same direction as the earth’s rotation. The photon is moving at the speed of light (2. necessitates this – it doesn’t matter where the photon came from), and I watch it pass by the earth, which is rotating in the same direction, at speed v, as the photon’s path. I conclude that from earth, folks see the photon moving at a speed of c-v. However, this contradicts 1., which says that earthlings are unaware of their absolute motion through the ether, through space, and just like M&M, they measure the speed of the photon to be c. If both are to be true, because facts cannot contradict one another and thanks to Einstein we left no room for assumptions, this says some funny things about the speed of light, distance and time. It seems that c is independent of both observer and source.

The basic upshot of Einstein’s interpretation of M&M is that our classical notion of simultaneity is out the window. Two observers moving relative to each other will not mean the same thing by “simultaneous.” Lorentz’s “shrinking” matter is actually the different “appearances” of length, due to measurements made while in different states of motion. The transformation of time is not without physical meaning, but a natural consequence of the differences in measurements of two observers. This leads to the Principle of Relativity: “although no-one knows what the true measurements should be, yet, each observer may use his own measurements with equal right and equal success in formulating the laws of nature.” [11]

This run-through of the story of the genesis of the Principle of Relativity was drawn primarily from Lieber’s book, The Einstein Theory of Relativity. I first came across this curious little book two years ago when it was recommended in the preface of my relativity textbook as a poignant exploration through special and general relativity making use of poetry and psychedelic cartoons. Overall, it has offered the clearest interpretation of the theory for me. I have often found the explanation of Einstein’s argument for special relativity confusing, neither in concept nor in math but rather in the chronological presentation of the argument. Some texts lead a first-time reader to assume that M&M was conducted for the purpose of finding out whether or not ether exists, because that was the important conclusion.

Lieber’s account, however, never actually denies the existence of ether (if it does, it is much later in the book). Einstein’s conclusion that there “really” is no ether is an unnecessary premise for proof of the principle of covariance. This brings up another subtlety that radically changes the shape of the argument. Einstein did not begin by exposing the “myth” of ether (indeed how could he, brilliant though he may have been, know the nature of space?). Neither did he begin with an assertion about the constancy of the speed of light for all observers. He simply stated the truth: that it is impossible to know how fast we are going in the ether. That is all the experiment told us. He used no language of absolutes or ideas or speculation about the nature of the universe. He didn’t have to. In later years, when asked how the theory unfolded for him, Einstein scolded himself for presenting the linear account of its development and key consequences. Failure to elucidate the theory’s more basic foundation hides the pivot of the paradigm shift.

Lieber is not scant with detail; analogies are drawn out in full and the result tends to be a crystal clear explanation of a concept. This is extremely valuable, especially given the abstract nature of this subject, when a tweak in the right direction can make all the difference between comprehension and a temper tantrum. Her analogy of sound moving through its medium tweaked me in the right direction – I had been unable to comprehend what was so special about light that it got to travel at a constant speed. The cartoon presentation offers something to the visual learner and stimulates the imagination, the analytic mind and the puzzle-solver, all of which, as we saw in Part II, are important to scientific innovation. The simple language, short, pithy sentences and bold terms are likewise friendly to the visual learner, and the impatient one.

I notice that I notice how things unravel when presented with a scientific theory for the first time. The chronological order of events helps make more natural associations and there is a tendency to remember details if the learner has a reason to remember them. In much the same way, the feeling associated with a presented idea gives it the human hook. Was the theory of special relativity the result of a long, arduous search for an answer or a quick flash of inspiration? Was it a shared enterprise or the pet project of a patent clerk by day, revolutionary by night? Like the chuckle when one really gets a joke, there is intellectual satisfaction of a different, pleasant quality, to seeing how Einstein came to make his claims about space and time instead of merely knowing the facts of those claims and their consequences.

From interviews with my physics professors to late-night phone calls with friends to discuss what the heck a manifold might be, this project has provided me with the opportunity to explore relativity in many more ways than a textbook education offers. Laying my hands on a copy of Einstein’s original manuscript was like the first time I walked up the steps of the Parthenon in Athens. And seeing the great scientist in motion, on film, a shy little man, did something not even the most moving bibliography could. It invoked a sense of being there, of care for a world that is mine as well as Albert Einstein’s and Ernst Mach’s and Friedrich Adler’s and Mileva Maric’s. Emotional development in a scientific discipline does not count as progress. Nevertheless, it is not a useless enterprise. I will never forget the profound intellectual discussion two years ago in my relativity class that made me want to continue studies in relativity. As a result, I have grown a deeper, fuller, more satisfying appreciation for the theory. The style of learning has not been progressive; neither has it been efficient. As Kuhn suggests, and I agree, making “the development of science linear hides a process that lies at the heart of the most significant episodes of scientific development.” The textbook account of science hides the changes in human thought – the dips and twists in theory – that allow for fluid motion through material, and a more accurate comprehension of its location in the bigger picture.

My insistence on the value of the “bigger picture” may seem tedious. After all, we are scientists; we love knowledge, so why slow down the train? There are several answers I will offer. First of all, as lovers of knowledge we must be lovers of truth. A more accurate, and more objective representation of the truth is necessarily a fuller one, in spite of distractions, because we must respect each other’s autonomy and trust each other to pick and choose the important parts of a story of knowledge. Not telling the whole story is too close to censorship for comfort. Physicists know that the fuzziness of uncertainty brings with it the possibility of knowledge. Finally, the big picture might be the most responsible one. Consideration for the whole – in the longer term, over a larger range, with an eye to the greater good – taking responsibility for my existence as a member of a community that is more global than the scientific one, seems like an ethically sound way of being in the world.

What should we do then? Have physicists stop doing what they love in favour of research into the history of their discipline? Prevent students from entering the field of theoretical physics because of its potential removal from a moral standpoint? Preventing people from doing what they love is not a positive action, unless what they love is to build bombs. But could others also take their place as part of the scientific community? Ethicists and historians, philosophers and philanthropists, as lovers of science and the truth it unveils, supporting and guiding experiment and theory? The use of his knowledge for the purposes of war was a tragedy for Einstein. Perhaps this demonstrates the need for ethical, social and historical inquiry in science that is given epistemic status equal to that of experimental and theoretical physics.

[1] Lewis S. Feuer. Einstein and the Generations of Science. Basic Books: New York. 1974, p. 27.
[2] Ibid., p. 30.
[3] Ibid., p. 32.
[4] Ibid., p. 10.
[5] Andrea Gabor, Einstein's Wife: Work and Marriage in the Lives of Five Great Twentieth-Century Women. Viking: New York. 1995, p. xii.
[6] James Lindemann and Hilde Lindemann, Eds. Meaning and Medicine: a Reader in the Philosophy of Health Care. Routledge: New York. 1999, Chapter 10.
[7] Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. 1962, p. 165.
[8] Ibid., p. 167.
[9] Sandra Harding, Is Science Multicultural? Postcolonialisms, Feminisms, and Epistemologies. Indiana University Press: Bloomington. 1998, p. 117.
[10] Lillian Lieber, The Einstein Theory of Relativity. Farrar & Rinehart, Inc.: New York. 1945, pp. 43-44.
[11] Ibid., p. 52.

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