Everything's Relative and Other Fables from Science and Technology
This book is the history of science they never taught you in school, or which you never read about in Time magazine: all the legends, misattributions,
coincidences and overlooked discoverers. Contents below. Click on highlighted chapters for selections.
Original Cover--withdrawn by publisher.
Why?
Fear of Lawsuit from"Einstein's Estate."
Errata:
Jacket Flap: No Henry Young existed. This should be Joseph Henry.
The question was whether Thomas Young ever did his experiment, not
whether he had help.
p. 72: Lorentz’s 1904 paper did not appear in the Annalen der Physik, but
it is true that Einstein had already published about seven papers in the
Annalen and appears to refer to Lorentz’s 1904 paper in his famous
“Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.”
Contents:
Author’s Preface
Lapses, Sources and Acknowledgements
I. Domain of Physics and Astronomy
1. The Mafia Invents the Barometer
2. Riddle of the Sphinx: Thomas Young and Young’s Experiment
3. Joseph Henry and the (Near) Discovery of (Nearly) Everything
4. The Greatest Discovery in the History of Astronomy, or the Greatest Fluke?
Neptune.
5. Invisible Light: The Discovery of Radioactivity
6. The Birth of Micophysics: The Electron
7. Einstein’s Miraculous Year (And a Few Others)
8. What Did the Eclipse Expedition Really Show? And Other Tales of General
Relativity
9. Two Quantum Tales: Bohr and Hydrogen; Dirac and the Positron
10. A Third Quantum Tale: South Paw Electrons and Discounted Luncheons
II. Domain of Technology
11. What Hath God Wrought? Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, Samuel Morse and
the Telegraph
12. Fiat Lux:: The Light bulb
13. “Magna est Veritas et Praevalet”: The Telephone
14. A Babble of Incoherence: The Wireless Telegraph, A.K.A. Radio
15. Mind Destroying Rays: Television
16. Plausibility: The Invention of Secret Electronic
Communication
17. Persistence of Memory: The Computer
III. Domain of Chemistry and Biology
18. The Evolution of Evolution: Erasmus, Charles, George and Ronald
19. Dreams With Open Eyes: Kekulé, Benzene and Loschmidt
20. Chance, Good and Bad: Penicillin
IV. Domain
of Mathematics
Closed for Renovation