Thematic Origins of Scientific Thought: Kepler to Einstein

Holton begins by asserting the importance of historical research into "thematic" aspects of science, by which is meant things like the complex motivations and other personal factors at the level of individual scientists, as opposed to "analytic" aspects of the formal scientific theories themselves. This is certainly very sound, but this point of view is not developed very far, leading only to some very cursory illustrations, such as the observation that scientists always use some "preselection" when developing theories, such as, e.g., Plato's dictum that planetary motions should be described by circles (pp. 75-78), a vague but somewhat appealing parallel between modern art and modern science (pp. 79-83), and a suggestion that scientific revolutions "can usually be seen to be projections back to an idealized, purified state of the past" (p. 93, also pp. 194-196). Instead, the book soon turns into an excellent study of the genesis of special relativity, with some quantum mechanics and a tiny bit of Kepler thrown in for good measure. Let us look at the relativity theory part. People who tell the story with a purely "analytic" mindset almost invariably emphasise the allegedly "crucial" experiment of Michelson. Holton's "thematic" study reveals a very different reality by identifying two far more important sources of influence on Einstein. One rather unexpected influence is Föppl, an obscure physicist-engineer who wrote a textbook on Maxwell's theory. As a student Einstein was never taught Maxwell's theory as it was never offered as a course, which he regretted since he "seemed to conceive of himself as an experimentalist" (p. 239) and, according to his own account, "'worked most of the time in the physical laboratory, fascinated by the direct contact with experience,'" thus prompting him "'to study at home the works of Kirchhoff, Helmholtz, Hertz, etc.'" (p. 214). In the course of these studies he appears to have stumbled upon Föppl's book, which suited his interest in experiments and his philosophical leanings. Einstein's study of electrodynamics led him to the following problem. "'According to Faraday, during the relative motion of a magnet with respect to a conducting circuit, an electric current is induced in the latter. It is all the same whether the magnet is moved or the conductor; only the relative motion counts according to the Maxwell-Lorentz theory. However, the theoretical interpretation of the phenomenon in these two cases is quite different ... The thought that one is dealing here with two fundamentally different cases was for me unbearable'" (pp. 381-382). This was a key motivation for Einstein in creating special relativity, as witnessed by the title "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies" of his 1905 paper, and its first sentence: "It is known that Maxwell's electrodynamics---as usually understood at the present time---when applied to moving bodies, leads to asymmetries which do not appear to be inherent in the phenomena." This

This book will challenge your understanding of how great, innovative ideas emerge. It is extremely well researched, framed in a very helpful fashion, and captivatingly written. While the title sounds daunting, the material is very accessible. Anyone interested in breakthrough thinking will quickly fall for this book. I only wish that I could have attended a course by Dr. Holton.