Books about Simultaneity from Amazon.com

Max Jammer's Concepts of Simultaneity presents a comprehensive, accessible account of the historical development of an important and controversial concept -- which played a critical role in initiating modern theoretical physics -- from the days of Egyptian hieroglyphs through to Einstein's work in 1905, and beyond. Beginning with the use of the concept of simultaneity in ancient Egypt and in the Bible, the study discusses its role in Greek and medieval philosophy as well as its significance in Newtonian physics and in the ideas of Leibniz, Kant, and other classical philosophers. The central theme of Jammer's presentation is a critical analysis of the use of this concept by philosophers of science, like Poincaré, and its significant role in inaugurating modern theoretical physics in Einstein's special theory of relativity. Particular attention is paid to the philosophical problem of whether the notion of distant simultaneity presents a factual reality or only a hypothetical convention. The study concludes with an analysis of simultaneity's importance in general relativity and quantum mechanics.

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Einstein, Relativity and Absolute Simultaneity is an anthology of original essays by an international team of leading philosophers and physicists who, on the centenary of Albert Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity, come together in this volume to reassess the contemporary paradigm of the relativistic concept of time. A great deal has changed since 1905 when Einstein proposed his Special Theory of Relativity, and this book offers a fresh reassessment of Special Relativity’s relativistic concept of time in terms of epistemology, metaphysics and physics. There is no other book like this available; hence philosophers and scientists across the world will welcome its publication.

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Most observers agree that modern physical theory attempts to provide objective representations of reality However, the claim that these representations are based on conventional choices is viewed by many as a denial of their objectivity. As a result, objectivity and conventionality in representation are often framed as polar opposites.

Offering a new appraisal of symmetry in modern physics, employing detailed case studies from relativity theory and quantum mechanics, Objectivity, Invariance, and Convention contends that the physical sciences, though dependent on convention, may produce objective representations of reality. Talal Debs and Michael Redhead show that both realists and constructivists have recognized important elements of an understanding of science that may not be contradictory.

The position--"perspectival invariantism"-- introduced in this book highlights the shortcomings of existing approaches to symmetry in physics, and, for the constructivist, demonstrates that a dependence on conventions in representation reaches into the domain of the most technical sciences. For the realist, it stands as evidence against the claim that conventionality must undermine objectivity. We can be committed to the existence of a single real ontology while maintaining a cultural view of science.

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This book presents an interdisciplinary approach to the question of how observer participant perspectives are generated, what constrains them and how they may be modified. These questions are of vital importance and must be addressed in any discipline before formulating a hypothesis or designing a model about reality. Both epistemological questions about the nature of temporal nested structures and practical applications of our ability to contextualize are discussed. The resulting temporal observer participant perspectives reflect approaches to the concept of simultaneity from the viewpoints of philosophers, logicians, cyberneticists and systems theorists, mathematicians, psychologists, medical practitioners, physicists, educationists, economists and musicologists. Although the main focus is on the cognitive sciences, as constraints to observer perspectives arise primarily from this field, the book will appeal to researchers of all disciplines and interested layman readers.

Contents: Observer Perspectives: Epistemological Background: Fractal Time: Extended Observer Perspectives (S Vrobel); Mirror Neurons: Evidence for the Great Simulator and Vrobelism (O E Rössler); Brain Time and Physical Time (U Fidelman); Identifying Temporal Observer Perspectives: On Time Experience in Depression (H M Emrich et al.); Ordinate Logics of Living Systems (J L R Chandler); Utilizing Fractal Time (T Marks-Tarlow); Disentangling Temporal Simultaneous Contrasts: Relativity of Scales: Application of an Endo-Perspective of Temporal Structures (L Nottale & P Timar); A Review of Flicker-Noise Spectroscopy: Information in Chaotic Signals (S F Timashev & Y S Polyakov); Modeling Common-Sense Decisions (M Zak); Synchronization: Computer Simulations as Hidden Time-Ecologies (G Koehler); Anti-Flaring: How to Prevent the Market from Overheating (A P Schmidt & O E Rössler); Endonomics: Looking Behind the Economic Curtain (A P Schmidt & O E Rössler); and other papers..
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Henri Bergson (1859 - 1941) introduced new life to French philosophy, examining the non-mathematical sciences from a philosophical stance. He introduced the concept of non-linear time to philosophical investigations of change. Forthis and other work he received the Nobel Prize in 1924. Duration and Simultaneity deals with one of the great Bergsonian themes, time. A central contention is that science and philosophy alike systematically misrepresent the nature of time. Bergson suggests that the traditional association between the model of space and time is incoherent. Unlike space, time is not measurable by objective standard. This contention is tried out here against the major movement in physics of the day; relativity. Tracing the development of the theory from special' to general' relativity, Bergson finds that a fundamental requirement of the theory is an impossibility - the assumption that the experiences of two observers moving at different speeds within two different physical systems might be thought of as simultaneous. This is to ignore the limits of possible experience.

As with much of Bergson's thought the book has had a complex reception in both the world of physics and philosophy. This edition is supplemented by a number of extracts bearing on the debate of Bergson's critique of relativity, including a previously untranslated interview between Einstein and Bergson.

This edition enhances the 1922 edition with an introduction by Robin Durie which appraises the book's early reception and examines the currency of Bergson's thought on time for the philosophy of science today. Durie lectures in Philosophy at Staffordshire University, is on the board of the Forum for European Philosophy and is the Secretary of the British Society of Phenomenology. He is also the author of Face to Face..
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