Poincaré’s epistemological writings: Obstacles to the diffusion of relativity? (Les écrits épistémologiques de Poincaré, obstacles à la diffusion de la relativité?) (French) Zbl 1025.01008

Borella, Vincent

Rev. Hist. Sci. 55, No. 1, 45-81 (2002).

At the beginning of the XXth century Henri Poincaré has devoted much effort to an analysis of a crisis of principles in physics. The analysis was sharp and helped to popularize conceptions like the principle of relativity, the relativity of space, or his definition of a local time. For that reason he is considered by some a forerunner of the special relativity theory of Einstein. However – the author argues – in spite of great editorial success of his popular writings on the subject, Poincaré did not lead to a better understanding of Einsteinian theory.

Reviewer: R.Duda (Wrocław)

MSC:

01A60

History of mathematics in the 20th century

Keywords:

Einstein; Poincaré; relativity; local time