Einstein, Inventors, and Invention
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 14670957 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Thomas P Hughes (0000-0002-5257-5063, University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1993 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 25-42 |
| Publication date | 1993-01-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science in Context (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/s0269889700001290 |
| OpenAlex | W2144677291 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 8 |
The Argument Albert Einstein had more than a passing and trivial involvement with patents and inventions. The historian seeking to fathom Einstein's thought processes would be ill-advised to pass lightly over his years at the Swiss Federal Patent office (1902–1909) and to consider his professional advice-giving about patents and his patenting of his inventions as merely peripheral to his core concerns and cognitive style. Years of reading patents and visualizing the machines, devices, and electromagnetic phenomena described in them is a formative experience. A number of inventors besides Einstein enhanced their power of visualization from reading and writing patent claims. It is reasonable to conclude that the Patent Office years honed his remarkable gift for visually conceptualizing systematic artifactual relationships that he used in articulating theory
Art · Einstein · Epistemology · Formative assessment · Mathematics education · Physics · Political science · Quantum mechanics · Visual arts · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Medicine · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology
| Citations per year | 0.15 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2013 - 2015 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |