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: #1038685 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’

Sunday Telegraph
‘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.

In the middle ground
Writing about science for laypersons is a tricky business, especially with regard to the scientific accuracy of the exposition and the human dimension of the characters. In the first instance, the author must choose between a superficial approach, full of analogies, fit for beginners, at the risk of boring the initiated, and a more elaborate treatment, intended for someone already familiar with the subject, that will probably scare the uninitiated. As to the characters, the author may reduce the scientists to a secondary role and concentrate on the results of research or fill the narrative with personal details about the people involved. The first choice will please the scientific-minded, while the second can make the reading more attractive to the humanists.
My main criticism of the book Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time is that the author does not make up his mind about the two points mentioned above. The long expositions about relativity and chaos do not bring any new contribution to the subject; the best popular books on relativity were written by Einstein himself, while chaos theory is brilliant reviewed by James Gleick in his best-selling Chaos: Making a New Science. At the same time, the wording is sometimes confusing for beginners. As to the biographical aspect of the work, several personal anecdotes on Einstein's and Poincaré 's lives are included (some utterly irrelevant), but the book does not dwell on the rich personalities of these two giants of science.
In short: trying to please everybody, the author wrote a book that possibly will please nobody

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.