the basic ideas of the inventions from the descriptions. This was frequently not easy and it gave Einstein an opportunity to study thoroughly many ideas that appeared new and interesting. Perhaps it was this work that developed his unusual faculty of immediately grasping the chief consequence of every hypothesis presented, a faculty that has aroused admiration in so many people who have had an opportunity to observe him in scientific discussion.
This occupation with inventions also kept awake in Einsteinan interest in the construction of scientific apparatus. There still exists an apparatus for measuring small electrical charges that he invented at this time. Such work was for him a kind of recreation from his abstract theoretical investigation in much the same way as chess and detective stories serve to relax other scientists. Quite a few mathematicians find amusement in the solution of chess problems and not in some sport or in the movies, and it may well be that a mathematical mind finds the best relaxation by occupying itself with problems that are not to be taken seriously but still require a modicum of logical thinking. Einstein does not like chess or detective stories, but he does like to think up all sorts of technical instruments and to discuss them with friends. Thus even today he is often in the company of his friend Dr. Bucky of New York, a well-known physician and specialist in the construction of X-ray machines, and together they have devised a mechanism for regulating automatically the exposure time of a photographic film depending on the illumination on it. Einstein’s interest in such inventions depends not on its practical utility but on getting at the trick of the thing.
II
CONCEPTIONS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD BEFORE EINSTEIN
1.
Philosophical Conception of Nature
The philosophical conception of nature that prevails in any given period always has a profound influence upon the development of physical science in that period. Throughout its history natural science has been cultivated according to two very different points of view. The one viewpoint, which may be called “scientific,” has attempted to develop a system with which observed facts could be correlated and from which useful information could be obtained, while the other, which may be called “philosophical,” has attempted to explain natural phenomena in terms of a specific historically sanctioned mode of exposition. This difference can best be illustrated in the theory of the motion of celestial bodies. In the sixteenth century the Copernican theory, which maintained that the earth moved around the sun, was useful in the correlation of the position of stars, but it was not considered “philosophically true,” since this idea contradicted the philosophical conception of that time according to which the earth was at rest in the center of the universe.
The philosophical conception itself, in the history of science, has suffered changes following revolutionary discoveries. Two main periods are outstanding. In the Middle Ages the understanding of natural phenomena was sought in terms of analogies with the behavior of animals and human beings. For instance, the motions of heavenly bodies and projectiles were described in terms of the action of living creatures. Let us call this view the
organismic
conception. The far-reaching investigations in mechanics by Galileo and Newton in the seventeenth century caused the first great revolution in physical thought and originated the conception of the
mechanistic
view in which all phenomena were explained in terms of such simple machines as levers and wheels. This view enjoyed great success, and because of this, mechanics became the model for all the naturalsciences — indeed, for all science in general. It reached its acme about 1870, and then, with increasing discoveries in new fields of physics, there began a process of disintegration. Then in 1905, with the publication of Einstein’s first paper on
This occupation with inventions also kept awake in Einsteinan interest in the construction of scientific apparatus. There still exists an apparatus for measuring small electrical charges that he invented at this time. Such work was for him a kind of recreation from his abstract theoretical investigation in much the same way as chess and detective stories serve to relax other scientists. Quite a few mathematicians find amusement in the solution of chess problems and not in some sport or in the movies, and it may well be that a mathematical mind finds the best relaxation by occupying itself with problems that are not to be taken seriously but still require a modicum of logical thinking. Einstein does not like chess or detective stories, but he does like to think up all sorts of technical instruments and to discuss them with friends. Thus even today he is often in the company of his friend Dr. Bucky of New York, a well-known physician and specialist in the construction of X-ray machines, and together they have devised a mechanism for regulating automatically the exposure time of a photographic film depending on the illumination on it. Einstein’s interest in such inventions depends not on its practical utility but on getting at the trick of the thing.
II
CONCEPTIONS OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD BEFORE EINSTEIN
1.
Philosophical Conception of Nature
The philosophical conception of nature that prevails in any given period always has a profound influence upon the development of physical science in that period. Throughout its history natural science has been cultivated according to two very different points of view. The one viewpoint, which may be called “scientific,” has attempted to develop a system with which observed facts could be correlated and from which useful information could be obtained, while the other, which may be called “philosophical,” has attempted to explain natural phenomena in terms of a specific historically sanctioned mode of exposition. This difference can best be illustrated in the theory of the motion of celestial bodies. In the sixteenth century the Copernican theory, which maintained that the earth moved around the sun, was useful in the correlation of the position of stars, but it was not considered “philosophically true,” since this idea contradicted the philosophical conception of that time according to which the earth was at rest in the center of the universe.
The philosophical conception itself, in the history of science, has suffered changes following revolutionary discoveries. Two main periods are outstanding. In the Middle Ages the understanding of natural phenomena was sought in terms of analogies with the behavior of animals and human beings. For instance, the motions of heavenly bodies and projectiles were described in terms of the action of living creatures. Let us call this view the
organismic
conception. The far-reaching investigations in mechanics by Galileo and Newton in the seventeenth century caused the first great revolution in physical thought and originated the conception of the
mechanistic
view in which all phenomena were explained in terms of such simple machines as levers and wheels. This view enjoyed great success, and because of this, mechanics became the model for all the naturalsciences — indeed, for all science in general. It reached its acme about 1870, and then, with increasing discoveries in new fields of physics, there began a process of disintegration. Then in 1905, with the publication of Einstein’s first paper on
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