Einstein's Lost Key ; How We Overlooked the Best Idea of the 20th Century 9781519473431, 1519473435
One hundred years after the completion of the General Theory of Relativity, conferences, meetings, and celebrations are
411 110 1MB
English Year 2015
Table of contents :
Introduction
Chapter 1 The Blind Spot of Physics
Why Einstein's best idea remains unknown to this day
Chapter 2 “I Rely on Intuition”
Why all scientific revolutions began without calculations
Chapter 3 “Arbitrary Numbers ... Ought Not to Exist.”
Einstein on simplicity in nature
Chapter 4 A Precursor of Deep Thoughts
Relativity, Mach and the secret of the universe
Chapter 5 The Revolutionary Idea of 1911
Why light propagates along curved paths
Chapter 6 Seduced by Mathematical Beauty
The Pyrrhic victory of geometrical formulation
Chapter 7 Gravity from the Universe
Einstein could not see that Mach was correct
Chapter 8 Half a Century Too Late
Robert Dicke’s simple completion of Einstein’s idea
Chapter 9 The Genius Who Didn’t Talk to Einstein
How Dirac’s Large Number Hypothesis enters the game
Chapter 10 Big Bang Without Expansion
Einstein’s desired cosmos
Chapter 11 Back Before Newton?
Why we need to question the notions of space and time
Chapter 12 Forgotten But Not Hidden
Einstein’s idea is visible long since: It is dark energy
Chapter 13 The Next Revolution Needs Open Data
Why astronomical precision measurements must go online
Outlook
Acknowledgment
Images
Bibliography
Endnotes
