The Local versus the Global in the history of relativity

The case of Belgium

Bibliographic Data

ID4516373
AuthorsSjang L Ten Hagen, Sjang Ten Hagen (0000-0003-3423-5847, Instituto de Física Teórica, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume33
Issue3
Pages227-250
Publication date2020-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueScience in Context (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0269-8897 • E-ISSN: 1474-0664
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0269889721000028
PMID34096494
OpenAlexW3006692771
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited63

ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein's theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions

Archaeology · Classical mechanics · Context (archaeology · Contradiction · Diversity (politics · Einstein · Epistemology · Physics · Political science · Theoretical physics · Theory of relativity · Historical and Literary Studies · History · History and Developments in Astronomy · History of Science and Natural History · Law · Philosophy

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Open DOIOpen Access