Henri Poincaré, Theoretical Physics, and Relativity Theory in Paris Scott Walter
Henri Poincaré, theoretical physics, and relativity theory in Paris Scott Walter To cite this version: Scott Walter. Henri Poincaré, theoretical physics, and relativity theory in Paris. Karl-Heinz Schlote, Martina Schneider. Mathematics Meets Physics, Harri Deutsch, pp.213-239, 2011. halshs-01234447 HAL Id: halshs-01234447 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01234447 Submitted on 26 Nov 2015 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Henri Poincaré, theoretical physics, and relativity theory in Paris Scott A. Walter∗ Published in Karl-Heinz Schlote & Martina Schneider, eds, Mathematics Meets Physics, Frankfurt am Main: Harri Deutsch, 2011, 213-239. 1 Introduction In studies of the emergence of relativity theory, historians have sought to char- acterize the reception of relativist ideas with respect to national communities of physicists and mathematicians, in an effort to reveal underlying features of these communities, such as their openness to new ideas, and their capacity for change. Stimulating this activity are the basic publication counts, that tell us that the recep- tion of relativity theory in academic journals varied markedly from one country to another. Periodicals based in Germany accounted for roughly half of all rel- ativist publications before 1916, while Germany-based authors published two of every five articles on relativity during the same period, and made up two-fifths of the total number of scientists (one hundred) contributing to relativity theory.
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