The Reinvention of General Relativity: A Historiographical Framework for Assessing One Hundred Years of Curved Space-time Author(s): Alexander Blum, Roberto Lalli, and Jürgen Renn Source: Isis, Vol. 106, No. 3 (September 2015), pp. 598-620 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/683425 . Accessed: 11/12/2015 12:01 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and The History of Science Society are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Isis. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 23.235.32.0 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 12:01:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions The Reinvention of General Relativity: A Historiographical Framework for Assessing One Hundred Years of Curved Space-time Alexander Blum, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Roberto Lalli, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Ju¨ rgen Renn, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science Abstract: The history of the theory of general relativity presents unique features. After its discovery, the theory was immediately confirmed and rapidly changed established notions of space and time. The further implications of general rela- tivity, however, remained largely unexplored until the mid 1950s, when it came into focus as a physical theory and gradually returned to the mainstream of physics. This essay presents a historiographical framework for assessing the history of general relativity by taking into account in an integrated narrative intellectual developments, epistemological problems, and technological advances; the char- acteristics of post–World War II and Cold War science; and newly emerging institutional settings. It argues that such a framework can help us understand this renaissance of general relativity as a result of two main factors: the recognition of the untapped potential of general relativity and an explicit effort at community building, which allowed this formerly disparate and dispersed field to benefit from the postwar changes in the scientific landscape. ne hundred years after its creation, the theory of general relativity is still the standard O theory of gravitational phenomena, the basis for cosmological research, and, perhaps most important, the theory that makes the most definite statements about what physicists mean when they speak of space and time. In the last thirty years, it has also become an active field of historical investigation. While much work has been done on its prehistory and genesis, and Alexander Blum, Roberto Lalli, Ju¨ rgen Renn (corresponding author): Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany; [email protected]; [email protected]; renn@mpiwg- berlin.mpg.de. An earlier version of this essay was presented at the Joint Day of the Thirty-second Winter School in Theoretical Physics and the conference “Space-Time Theories: Historical and Philosophical Contexts,” Jerusalem. We heartily thank the organizers, Yemima Ben-Menahem and David Gross, and we are grateful to all participants for their useful comments. We have also received helpful comments from Jean Eisenstaedt, Hubert Goenner, John Stachel, Kurt Sundermeyer, Donald Salisbury, Matthias Schemmel, two anonymous referees, and the Editor of this journal. We are especially grateful to Luisa Bonolis for her support during the research process. Isis, volume 106, number 3. © 2015 by The History of Science Society. All rights reserved. 0021-1753/2015/10603-0004$10.00 598 This content downloaded from 23.235.32.0 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 12:01:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ISIS—Volume 106, Number 3, September 2015 599 some work on its immediate reception, its most striking features—its persistence and resil- ience—have remained largely unexplored.1 The persistence of general relativity might not seem that surprising at first glance, given the well-known stories of its immediate spectacular confirmation and Einstein’s subsequent rise to scientific superstardom. However, historians of science have found that, not long after its establishment, the theory underwent what Jean Eisenstaedt has called a “low-water-mark” period in which it was mainly considered as providing small corrections to the Newtonian picture and in which the few physicists working on it achieved only modest progress.2 The majority of theoretical physicists directed their intellectual efforts toward the development of other branches of physics, such as quantum mechanics, nuclear physics, and quantum electrodynamics, touching on the issues of general relativity theory only in an unsystematic manner. Moreover, as we shall discuss later in this essay, in this period general relativity was considered by most—in particular its creator—as merely a stepping-stone toward a larger theoretical framework. This makes it even more remarkable that in the early 1960s general relativity experienced a sudden revival in connec- tion with astrophysical discoveries far removed from its original domain, which had essentially been confined to the solar system. The physicist Clifford Will coined the phrase “Renaissance of General Relativity” to describe the process through which general relativity became an internationally visible, highly active field of research in which theoretical explorations went hand in hand with new astrophysical discoveries such as quasars and the cosmic microwave background radiation.3 The systematic exploration of exact solutions, and the understanding of space-time singularities and of the physical reality of gravitational waves, all came only after the low-water-mark period, in the wake of the renaissance of general relativity. While there may be some obvious reasons for these developments, such as the role of World War 1 For the genesis of general relativity we refer to Ju¨ rgen Renn, ed., The Genesis of General Relativity, 4 vols. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007); and Michel Janssen, “‘No Success Like Failure . .’: Einstein’s Quest for General Relativity, 1907–1920,” in The Cambridge Companion to Einstein, ed. Janssen and Christoph Lehner (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014), pp. 167–227. Several case studies concerning the development and reception of general relativity are in Don Howard and John Stachel, eds., Einstein and the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, 1) (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1987); Jean Eisenstaedt and Anne J. Kox, eds., Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, 3) (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1992); John Earman, Janssen, and John D. Norton, eds., The Attraction of Gravitation: New Studies in the History of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, 5) (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1993); Hubert Goenner, Renn, Jim Ritter, and Tilman Sauer, eds., The Expanding Worlds of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, 7) (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1999); Eisenstaedt and Kox, eds., The Universe of General Relativity (Einstein Studies, 11) (Boston: Birkhäuser, 2005); Lehner, Renn, and Matthias Schemmel, eds., Einstein and the Changing Worldviews of Physics (Einstein Studies, 12) (Dordrecht: Springer, 2012); and Mara Beller, Renn, and Robert S. Cohen, eds., Einstein in Context (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993). For the reception of general relativity see also Thomas F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Relativity (Dordrecht: Springer, 1987); Stanley Goldberg, Understanding Relativity: Origin and Impact of a Scientific Revolution (Boston: Birkhäuser, 1984); and Stephen G. Brush, “Why Was Relativity Accepted?” Physics in Perspective, 1999, 1:184–214. 2 Jean Eisenstaedt, “La relativite´ge´ne´rale a` l’e´tiage: 1925–1955,” Archive for History of Exact Sciences, 1986, 35:115–185; and Eisenstaedt, “Trajectoires et impasses de la solution de Schwarzschild,” ibid., 1987, 37:275–357. 3 Clifford Will, Was Einstein Right? Putting General Relativity to the Test (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), esp. pp. 3–18; see also George Ellis, Antonio Lanza, and John Miller, eds., The Renaissance of General Relativity and Cosmology (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993). On a similar note, the period from 1964 to the mid 1970s is called the “Golden Age of General Relativity” in Kip S. Thorne, Black Holes and Time Warps: Einstein’s Outrageous Legacy (New York: Norton, 1994), esp. pp. 258–299. The starting point of the “golden age” is usually considered the First Texas Symposium of Relativistic Astrophysics, held in Dallas on 16–18 Dec. 1963, in which astrophysicists and relativists joined together to explore the nature of the newly discovered quasars. See Ivor Robinson, Alfred Schild, and Engelbert L. Schu¨ cking, eds., Quasi-stellar Sources and Gravitational Collapse (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1965); and B. Kent Harrison, Thorne, Masami Wakano, and John A. Wheeler, Gravitation Theory and Gravitational Collapse (Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press, 1965). This content downloaded from 23.235.32.0 on Fri, 11 Dec 2015 12:01:10 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 600 Alexander Blum, Roberto Lalli,