Chapter 31 Chapter 28 Einstein on the Scientific Revolution

For many historians, philosophers, sociologists, and scientists, the relativity revolution has become the poster child for a scientific revolution.But Einstein believed that his contribution should be regarded as an integral part of the progress of physics, rather than a revolutionary development of physics.He never wrote a special article on the subject of the concept of revolution as opposed to the concept of evolution, but he has expressed it profoundly on many occasions. In evaluating Einstein's views on the scientific revolution, we must note that before he gained international prominence, his views were different from his later views.This may explain the fact that, in March 1905, he wrote to C.In a letter, Habicht described his concept of the photon as "very revolutionary" (Schilig 1954, 89).But in 1947 he was vehemently opposed to the notion that scientific progress was driven by a steady revolutionary tide.As far as I know, this letter to Habicht is the only time Einstein used the word "revolutionary" to describe his own work and the physics of this century.Other accounts of Einstein's contribution to the scientific revolution can be found scattered in his correspondence, in his lectures, or in articles he wrote about his own work or the accomplishments of other scientists.Each of his insights must therefore be examined and understood in a specific context.I find no evidence that Einstein ever thought anything significant about the model of scientific revolutions or ever developed a real theory about the path of scientific development.I would like to add a language problem here: Einstein's mother tongue is German, so there will be problems in understanding and translation.

A year after Einstein published his "very revolutionary" concept of the photon, his theory of relativity, and his work on Brownian motion, he explicitly spoke of his concern that he might never again be able to make the above Creativity in achievement.Is great creativity really exhausted? On May 3, lgu he wrote to M.Solovin, expressing his sadness that he will no longer be able to make new and important scientific contributions.He said: "I am about to enter an age of stagnation and impoverishment of ideas, an age which can only lament the revolutionary zeal of youth" (Einstein 1956, 5; see Feiner 1971, 297; 1974).This sentence is somewhat vague, but I think one of its meanings is that a creative young scientist is prone to produce "revolutionary ideas", so they are likely to form "very revolutionary" ideas.I do not think that the word "revolutionary" found in the two letters of 1905-1906 should be regarded as different from the meaning of the word revolution which was then prevalent in scientific circles.That is to say, Einstein especially emphasized that the concept of light quantum embodies a strong discontinuous characteristic, which is a revolutionary breakthrough in the process of physics.

Einstein's call for revolutionary science in 1905-06 contrasts sharply with his 1947 commentary. On January 30, 1947, the "New York Times" published such a news item: "Einstein's theory has been expanded."This refers to A.Schrödinger's statement: "Solution of a 30-year-old problem: Einstein's great theory of 1915 is powerfully extended." The New York Times reports that Schrödinger claimed he had extended general relativity from the gravitational realm to the electromagnetic realm .This research was "what we scientists should do, and building the atomic bomb is the opposite." Schrödinger's statement was seen as immodest.Prior to this, the "New York Times" sent someone to interview Einstein and asked him to express his views.The interview was published together with the news about Schrödinger.It quotes only a few words from Einstein, who "cannot yet make any comment on this", Einstein said: "I lack first-hand information", and "about scientific matters", he and Schrödinger has only "limited connections".

However, although Einstein did not make public comments in the news media, he did write an article, the English translation of which M.Klein has cited (1975, 113).Einstein said: "The reader gets the impression that a scientific revolution occurs every five minutes, almost like a military coup in some unstable small country." According to Einstein (according to Klein's citation) : "Excessive use of the term scientific revolution can give people a wrong impression of the process of scientific development".Einstein wrote that this "development process is the indefatigable labor of successive generations of the best minds" and is "a process that gradually leads to a deeper understanding of the laws of nature".In these texts, we can find that although Einstein emphasized the cumulative aspect of scientific progress, he did not completely exclude accidental revolutions.

Klein observed that "Einstein specifically mentioned the scientific revolution only when the revolution (in science) reached the level of the French or Russian revolutions".We've seen Einstein refer to the Maxwell Revolution (or Faraday, Maxwell, Hertzian Revolution) over and over again.In his "Autobiographical Notes" (1949, 37), Einstein pointed out: "The revolution that began with the introduction of the (electromagnetic) field was by no means complete." Klein (1975, 118-119) commented on Einstein's After an in-depth analysis of the achievements, he pointed out that Einstein did not really create a new "quantum theory of light", but only put forward a hypothesis, which is "an instructive guide to establish a necessary new theory".Klein also pointed out that when Einstein proposed his theory of relativity, he did not claim that he had "discovered a new fundamental theory."Thus in his 1907 paper (as well as in his 1915 paper), Einstein correctly stated that special relativity was nothing more than "an illuminating principle".For Einstein, the theory of relativity did not constitute a revolution.

Although Einstein labeled only one of his three great contributions of 1905 "revolutionary," his scientific colleagues, students, collaborators, and biographers all agreed The view of the historian of science: Special relativity, the quantum theory of light, and the interpretation of Brownian motion are all three revolutionary.Of these, his interpretation of Brownian motion is the least known, but it was inherently revolutionary in that it provided an entirely new way of solving the fundamental problem of molecular motion.In studying molecular motion, Einstein developed "the first important method in the given theory of statistical fluctuations" (Klein 1975, 116).By the Polish physicist M. V．Small Ukelsky simultaneously and independently proposed this theory, which was considered revolutionary by many of his contemporaries, especially when it was introduced by J.After the experiments of Perrin, Swedberg and others confirmed.But Einstein did not consider this work revolutionary because "it was merely a corollary of the escape from the mechanistic worldview" (ibid.).

The revolutionary significance of Einstein's 1905 paper on the quantum nature of light has already been discussed in Chapter 27 of this book.But here we should note that Einstein used the word "inspiring" in the title.What he expounded is not a theory, but to explain various phenomena based on a hypothesis, and the right or wrong of the hypothesis is irrelevant to him, it is only used as the basis of explanation.Einstein still did not connect the word "theory" to the light quantum hypothesis until his death. A week before his death, Einstein corrected a visitor of "Einstein's light quantum theory", Einstein emphasized that : No, the light quantum is "not a theory", because the light quantum is different from the theory of relativity. Einstein believed that the theory of relativity is an evolutionary development of previous physical logic, and the light quantum hypothesis is incompatible with the previous principles.He thought the conception of light he had arrived at was peculiar, even utterly untenable.So his use of "revolutionary" as an attribute for the light quantum hypothesis may imply this inappropriate, even incorrect property, not just its novelty.

As we all know, Einstein spent a lot of time in the heyday of his scientific career to create a "unified field theory", but failed.Unified field theory attempts to unify gravity and other physical forces in an intrinsically connected way, in order to describe the physical world accurately and completely. M．Klein sees Einstein's later insights about the scientific revolution as part of his belief in a coming revolution that would restore some of the qualities in physics that had been lost under the onslaught of the 20th century.Klein (1975, 120) writes: "When Einstein skeptically objected to the claim that this or that newly discovered theory caused a revolution in physics, he meant a real revolution. The old system of Newtonian worldview has been abandoned, but his genius successor must propose an intelligible, consistent and unified picture of physical reality to replace the old picture that has been abandoned. Temporary achievements of thought that do not give a complete new picture deserve their due evaluations, but Einstein refused to call them completed revolutions".

Let's go back and look at what Einstein said about Galileo.Along with Kepler and Newton, he was a hero whom Einstein admired.Einstein not only praised Galileo's scientific achievements, but also appreciated the dominant ideas embodied in his work: "Strive to oppose any dogma based on authority." Einstein praised Galileo for only admitting that "experience and careful thinking are the standards of truth." ", he commented, "how dangerous and how revolutionary" Galileo's attitude was at the time.These words come from Einstein as S.Drake wrote the preface to the English translation of Galileo's Dialogue, which our discussion of Einstein and revolution will soon refer to.

Einstein's preface was published in German and the so-called "S. Bagman's authoritative English translation".Although the same word—revolutionary—appears in both versions, there is a passage in the German version that uses an entirely different word: bahnbrechend (literally, "to create"), which according to the "authoritative translation" Paraphrase means "revolutionary real content of the conversation".In the preface, Einstein likens Galileo to a political revolutionist.According to Einstein, Galileo abandoned the authority and prejudice of ancient scholars and believed in his own reasoning.Because in Galileo's time, almost no "people with firm will, wisdom and courage" dared to stand up against "the group of idle preachers who rely on the ignorance of the people and wear the cloak of priests and scholars." ", in order to "maintain their own power".Einstein considered Galileo's status as "groundbreaking" and "revolutionary".But he didn't use the phrase "Galilean revolution".He knew that even without Galileo, the seventeenth century would have seen the "shackles of decadent cultural tradition" broken, and his prudence reflected his fear that he, too, would suffer from "common human weakness" that "came out of fascination with the figure he admired." , and exaggerated their status".

At that time, Einstein had already mastered English proficiently, whether it was writing or speaking, but he still preferred to write in German.We don't know how careful he was when reviewing that "authoritative translation", but I believe that if he could not express his own thoughts, he would never let go of using "revolutionary" instead of "bahnbrechend".At that time, the translator and Einstein were working together. Could it be that he distorted Einstein's meaning?In any case, Einstein had used the word "revolutionary" just a few lines earlier, and the meaning was unequivocal from the context.Four years earlier, in his Notes to Autobiography (1949, 53), Einstein had used the same term when describing the period after Planck: After Planck's pioneering work (nach Plancks bahnbmehender Arbeit ), but this time, unlike his reference to Galileo, he did not describe Planck's work as "revolutionary".He discusses the "fundamental crisis - the severity of which was suddenly recognized by Planck's in-depth study of thermal radiation" (1900, 37). Einstein discussed the revolutionary nature of Maxwell's theory in his "Autobiographical Notes" (1949, 32-35), contrasting the "Faraday-Maxwell combination" with the "Galileo-Newton combination", in which the first One person has grasped the "qualitative connection", and the second person has expressed this connection with precise formulas and made them quantitatively applicable.We believe that anyone who has read the "Notes on the Autobiography" and the preface to the "Dialogue" cannot but draw the conclusion that Einstein recognized two great revolutions.The first was the Newtonian revolution, preceded by the Galilean revolution, where the concepts of mass and acceleration were linked to a new conception of force, a force at a distance.The second was Maxwell's revolution, based in part on Faraday's idea of ​​electromagnetic induction, which introduced the concept of a field to replace Newton's "action at a distance"—Einstein quite literally emphasized that "fields also describe radiation "(1949, 35). In 1927, "Natural Science" published an article written by Einstein commemorating Newton. He wrote: "The revolution in electromagnetism and optics was launched by Faraday and Maxwell... This revolution is the first in theoretical physics after Newton's revolution. The first major fundamental advance".It can be seen from the context that Einstein here also seems to have implicitly acknowledged the Newtonian revolution.Here Einstein did not use the word "revolution" as in other papers, but "Faraday-Maxwell's Electromagnetic and Optical Revolution (umwalzung)".We know that umwalzung is generally regarded as a synonym for revolution. Einstein expressed his own views in later essays on Newton (1927; 1954, 260).He proposed: "The general theory of relativity is the last step in the field theory research program".Then he said: "From a quantitative point of view, he himself made only a small modification to Newton's theory, but from a qualitative point of view, his improvement is profound."This is Einstein's classic account of the evolutionary properties of general relativity. The phrase "modified Newton's theory" expresses Einstein's inner thoughts: his work is just an improvement (transformaion), not a new creation.We know that recognizing this as an improvement in no way detracts from our appreciation of the revolutionary changes that new ideas can bring about.In this article, Einstein said: "The theories of Maxwell and Lorentz will inevitably lead to the special theory of relativity. Since the special theory of relativity abandons the concept of absolute simultaneity, it also excludes the existence of force at a distance."He wants readers to realize that special relativity is an evolutionary step, although we may see that such an improvement is so significant that it can be regarded as revolutionary, however prominent its evolutionary character.In the article, Einstein profoundly and truthfully reveals the significance of special and general relativity.However, to most historical observers, the theory of Xiangyang seems to be not only revolutionary, but also revolutionary at the highest level. The subject of evolution is addressed in many of Einstein's writings.He wrote in a popular article in London "The Times" (1919.11.28 Einstein, 230): "Special relativity" is only "a systematic development of Maxwell and Lorentz's electrodynamics". In a lecture given at the Royal Academy in London in 1921, Einstein developed this idea further, saying: "The theory of relativity ... can be said to complete the huge intellectual edifice built by Maxwell and Lorenz", and he tried to put "Field physics extended to phenomena of all kinds, including gravity" (ibid., 246).He then stated unequivocally: "Here we have no revolutionary action, it is just the natural continuation of a line of development that goes back centuries".We shall next examine whether Einstein's statement was a reaction to the exaggeration of the news media.But we should note that the theme of evolution also crops up in other of his lectures and in later essays, for example in his essay on Newton (p. 261), where Einstein discusses "the evolution of our ideas about natural processes." ".The difficulty with trying to fit Einstein's insights into a simple model, however, is the fact that, even in the same essay, Einstein's picture of scientific development is quite different: "Our basic ideas The revolution has begun to take place since the end of the nineteenth century", the original German text reads: "ein umschwungder grandanschauungen", translated into English by Bagman (Einstein 1954, 257) as: "The gradual change in our basic ideas ".But we may be able to refer to Einstein's article on Maxwell to get some enlightenment on the understanding of this sentence (see Chapter 20 above).Einstein wrote that "at all times this great change (or revolution) will be associated with the names of Faraday, Maxwell and Hertz".But in the very next sentence, Einstein uses the word "revolution" to describe the event, which makes it clear that he uses "change" (umschwung) as the term for "revolution." synonyms.Einstein Comments on Newton The first translator translated "umschwung" into "revolution" (the first definition of the word in many dictionaries), but changed the author's grammatical relationship to "our basic idea A step-by-step revolution inPerhaps this introduces a new concept of change in the history of science, which in fact is logically self-contradictory.But no matter which interpretation of the word we choose, there is no doubt that Einstein was convinced that great revolutionary changes in science could and have happened, but that they were seldom, if ever, without any logic to the thinking of the past Contact sudden, dramatic and unanticipated changes.Yet he himself never said, publicly or privately, that relativity was such a revolution. Gerald Holden wrote a review of Einstein in 1981 in which he discussed Einstein's "idea that scientific theories develop through evolution" (p. 14).He emphasized Einstein's assertion that "the most wonderful destiny of physical theories is to point the way to a more inclusive theory of which the old theory is itself a special case of the new theory".Particularly eloquent is the speech Einstein gave when he first came to America (New York Times, 1921.4.4 see Holden 1981, 15): At present, there is an erroneous opinion widely circulated in the public, that is, the theory of relativity is incompatible with physics since Newton and Galileo, and is completely opposed to their reasoning.But the actual situation is contrary to this. Without the discoveries of great predecessors in physics and the leading theories established by them, the theory of relativity is simply unimaginable. The theory of relativity could not have appeared in time.Those who laid the groundwork for the theory of relativity were Galileo, Newton, Maxwell and Lorentz. Michel Bubin, introducing Einstein at Columbia University, said he was the founder of a theory that was "an evolution of dynamics, not a revolution."He must have understood Einstein's position at the time. Einstein's insight above shows how difficult it is to sum up in one sentence whether Einstein believed a revolution had taken place in science.He must have known that most people (scientists and non-scientists alike) believed that relativity was a revolution, so he took the trouble (on several occasions) to point out that relativity was a logical, evolutionary step, not a departure from the old A step in the direct rupture of ideas.He spoke more than once of a Maxwellian revolution, and in 1953 he used the term "revolutionary" in his unequivocal introduction to Galileo's Dialogue, in a tone that was decidedly more instructive than when he called his quantum of light half a century earlier. The "has aggravated a lot. In discussing Einstein's ideas about scientific revolution and scientific evolution, we should not forget that Einstein never wrote about it, nor did he discuss it specifically in recorded conversations or letters that we can gather. theme.And we know that Einstein was a very humble man in many ways, so he would have vehemently opposed press claims that he started a scientific revolution.In one of his most outspoken statements, he prominently objected to the impression given by the news media that scientific revolutions occur "every five minutes."It should be noted, however, that even when Einstein vehemently rebutted Schrödinger's achievements, he did not completely rule out the possibility of a scientific revolution.His modesty and distaste for the practices of news organizations were probably the main reasons why Einstein saw the revolution he started as "evolution." Moreover, for young idealistic intellectuals, the word "revolution" appeared in 1905 and 1906 and had a completely different meaning from it after 1917.Einstein's main statement that he viewed his work as evolutionary rather than revolutionary came after the aborted Russian Revolution of 1917 and the revolutions that spread throughout Central Europe soon after the end of World War I, when the streets of Berlin Bloody battles are still going on.From the 1920s to the 1950s, Einstein, as we know, enjoyed writing about Galileo's (and maybe Newton's) revolutions, and he also wrote several times about Maxwell's revolutions.What is important, I think, is that in the autobiography that Einstein wrote in the 1940s, it was his account of the Maxwell revolution that featured prominently, and it was an intense and lucid account.When Einstein spoke of the Maxwell revolution as being made by Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz (with the addition of Maxwell's "lion-like leadership"), he was undoubtedly emphasizing the depth of the conceptual change without taking into account span of time.Because Faraday's papers were published in the 1830s and Hertz's papers were published in the 1890s, this revolution spanned a long period of more than half a century.This example shows that the great scientific revolutions in Einstein's mind cannot be strictly compared with sudden, violent political events, which are characterized by changing forms of domination. Einstein's former assistant, Banash Hoffman, has written several books on Einstein and modern physics.He told me he never heard Einstein say anything against a scientific revolution.In a book co-written with Einstein's longtime secretary and friend, Hoffman draws on numerous accounts of Einstein's revolution to find that Einstein's view of science was not self-contradictory.Hoffmann copied on to Einstein's science those remarks which Einstein had applied to the science of Galileo and Maxwell but not to his own.In his book on Einstein and relativity, Infeld called special relativity the "first Einsteinian revolution" (1950, 23; 40) and general relativity the "second Einsteinian revolution". revolution".Infeld was Einstein's close assistant and collaborated with Einstein on the book "The Evolution of Physics" (1938).Infeld evaluated Einstein's contribution to quantum theory as a major step in "the great unfinished revolution" in quantum theory that was "revolutionary and at the same time reconciling".The journalist Alexander Moskowski, who has reported extensively on his conversations with Einstein, said that special relativity represented a "revolutionary shift in the thinking of physics" (1921, 113), and that general relativity required "revolutionary natural Ideas" (p. 6), "Few of us realize that along the lines of the development of Einstein's ideas, what awaits us is a deeper inner revolution (p. 141), Planck, the author of ideas and People who are conservative in their rhetoric apparently have no hesitation in declaring the extreme revolutionary nature of Einstein's work (Halton 1981, 14): This new way of thinking about time greatly requires the physicist's ability to abstract and imagine.He far exceeds any amazing achievements in theoretical scientific research or even in knowledge theory..., the revolution of the world view caused by the theory of relativity, in terms of the depth and breadth of its influence, only the new universe system introduced by Copernicus The resulting revolution is comparable. But Dennis Sishama (1969, ix) found: "Newton's laws of motion are incomplete in their own right, and the problems arising from them lead step by step to the extremely complex general theory of relativity".There are many scientists and historians who agree with Einstein that the theory of relativity is an extension and improvement of existing scientific ideas, and there is also a lot of evidence that the theory of relativity is one of the greatest revolutions of this century, a major scientific revolution. Einstein argued in numerous articles and in his autobiography that both evolution and revolution are elements of scientific development and have become two important research topics today.Gerald Holden (1981) focused on Einstein's formulation of the evolutionary nature of relativity and his 1947 statement against Schrödinger's claimed revolution.He therefore only mentions but does not discuss Einstein's letter to Habisit about quantum theory, nor does he examine Einstein's many statements about Maxwell's revolution.On the other hand, Martin Klein (P975) at the same time he was learning about Einstein's ideas about relativity as part of the evolutionary process of science, he also studied Einstein's account of revolutions - theses Linked to Maxwell, Schrödinger, and Einstein's own light quantum hypothesis.