Product Description

In May 1905 Albert Einstein changed time forever; his theory of relativity had practical consequences that changed the world. Only a century ago Europe had a huge number of local time zones and no proper system of synchronizing them. This threatened chaos, particularly on the railways and communications. Synchronized time was necessary to create timetables for passengers and stop trains from crashing as they hurtled in opposite directions along single tracks. Enter two revolutionary thinkers. Henri Poincare, a member of the Paris Bureau of Longitude, realized that synchronized clocks would underpin further French conquests in Africa. So a grid of telegraph cables was planned from France all the way down to colonial Senegal and onwards. A Paris masterclock would transmit a telegraphic pulse with which all the clocks in Africa could synchronize. Meanwhile, working in the Bern patent office, Albert Einstein witnessed the stream of new inventions designed to synchronize the world's clocks. This set him thinking and suggested the revolutionary conclusion that there was no such thing as "universal time" - it was just an illusion given by properly synchronized clocks. Published when he was only 26, Einstein's special theory of relativity paper had profound consequences for the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #683463 in Books
• Published on: 2003-08-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Sunday Telegraph, 31 August 2003
‘Deeply rewarding... Galison’s profound scholarship is evident on every page, continually offering fresh insights and perspectives’

About the Author
Peter Galison was educated at Cambridge (MPhil in Philosophy of Science) and Harvard (BA, MA and PhD) universities. He has taught at Stanford Uiversity and is currently the Mallinckrodt Professor of History of Science and of Physics at Harvard.

Customer Reviews

Dense but valuable
I was slow to warm to this book, but the further I read, the more gripped I became.
It's astonishing how recently time was coordinated between rail companies and then around the world, and how physically difficult it was to map places like Peru and West Africa. Let alone agree how far Paris is from London.
I was inspired by the book to read some more about Einstein and time.

Disappointing
Unfortunately, I don't think this subject warrants a book of this length.

Whilst there is a story there, it could have been much shorter, and so the book drags it all out, wandering off at tangents before coming back.

The illustrations & photographs were poorly reproduced and poorly chosen - why we needed to see the public clocks in Berne that Einstein would have seen on his way to work confused me.