Booklist: Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps, by Peter Galison

Einstein's Clocks,Poincare's Maps: Empires of Time, by Peter Galison
WW Norton & Co. 2003
328 pages plus notes, Bibliography, and index. A few b&w photos and illustrations spread throughout the book.
Library: 529 GAL


Deals with time rather than nuclear physics, but needs to be read!

Description from Publisher's Weekly at Amazon website

Harvard historian of science Galison approaches our understanding of time at the beginning of the 20th century through two related dimensions. The first, extremely practical perspective focuses on our ability to accept a common definition of time at various locations. Before our current system of time zones existed, time was a local construct, making it extremely difficult to coordinate events, have trains run smoothly or determine longitude. The second, far more theoretical perspective deals with the basic laws of physics and addresses the question: is time absolute or relative? Galison focuses his narrative through the eyes of the two scientists most responsible for crafting our present understanding of time, Albert Einstein and Henri Poincare‚. While Einstein needs no introduction, the less well-known Poincare‚ does. He was one of the world's most renowned mathematicians and president of the French Bureau of Longitude. Galison explains how, in the case of each of these scientists, the practical dimension helped shape their understanding of the theoretical dimension, and, in turn, how they helped transform the world. Although Galison's material is of great interest, his writing is often obtuse and overly technical, making the book's ideas less accessible to a general audience. 46 illus.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1: Synchrony
-Einstein's Times
-A Critical Opalescence
-Order of Argument

Chapter 2: Coal, Chaos and Convention
-Coal
Chaos
Convention

Chapter 3: The Electric Worldmap
-Standards of space and time
-Time, trains and telegraphs
Marketing time
Measuring society
Time into space
Battle over neutrality

Chapter 4. P{oincare's maps
-Time, reason, nation
-Decimalizing time
-Of time and maps
-Mission to Quito
Etherial time
A triple conjunctiom

Chapter 5: Einstein's Clocks
-Materializing time
-Theory-Machines
-Patent truths
-Clocks first
Radio Eiffel

Chapter 6. The Place of Time
-Without Mechanics
-Two modernisms
-Looking up, looking down

Notes
Bibliography
Index