Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 16, 2004 – Peter Galison, Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and of Physics at Harvard University, will deliver this year’s Richmond Lecture, titled “Einstein’s Clocks, Poincaré’s Maps.” The lecture will take place on Monday, Feb. 23, at 8 p.m. in Wege Auditorium.
Einstein’s theory of relativity has long been regarded by scholars as a monument to the power of abstract thought. Galison argues, however, that it was Einstein’s mundane connections to the world that spurred his scientific progress. The patent office in Bern, Switzerland where Einstein worked was a clearinghouse for patents on the synchronization of clocks, a movement to standardize time brought on by overly complicated train schedules. In the context of these concrete factors, manifestations of the question of simultaneity, Einstein created his theory of relativity.
Poincaré, a mathematician, astronomer, philosopher, and follower of the French Enlightenment, was a mere step away from relativity. Grounded in practical work as a mining inspector, Poincaré was president of the French Board of Longitude, striving to create an accurate global map. Coordinated clocks were integral to his endeavor, creating a strong motivating force behind his inquiries into simultaneity.
Galison searches for those rare moments when abstract thought collides with the concreteness of the real world, creating points of intersection that unite the fields of technological, philosophical, and physical reasoning. His work explores the complex interaction between the three principal subcultures of twentieth century physics: experimentation, instrumentation, and theory.
He is the author of “How Experiments End,” “Image and Logic,” and “Einstein’s Clocks and Poincaré’s Maps: Empires of Time,” which investigate, in turn, those three aspects of the scientific process. Galison describes convergences such as Einstein’s and Poincaré’s account of simultaneity as “opalescent moments,” that “point to science in times and places where we’re starting to think with and through machines at radically different scales… where we are flipping back and forth between abstraction and concreteness so intensively that they illuminate each other in fundamentally novel ways. When we see such opalescence, we should dig into them, and deeply, for they are transformative moments of our cultures.”
Galison has been the recipient of many academic honors, including the Max Planck Research Award for International Cooperation, awarded by the Max Planck Gesellschaft and Humboldt Stiftung in 1999, and a MacArthur Fellowship in 1997. His book “Image and Logic” was awarded the Pfizer Prize for Best Book in the History of Science. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Max Planck Institute. Galison has written for numerous scholarly journals; Physical Review, Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, and Reviews of Modern Physics among them.
Galison received his B.A. from Harvard University, his M.Phil. in 1978 from Cambridge University, and his Ph.D. in 1983 from Harvard University.
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For building locations on the Williams campus, please consult the map outside the driveway entrance to the Security Office located in Hopkins Hall on Main Street (Rte. 2), next to the Thompson Memorial Chapel, or call the Office of Public Affairs (413) 597-4279. The map can also be found on the web at www.williams.edu/home/campusmap/
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Published February 23, 2004
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