A history of relativity: The role of Henri Poincaré and Paul Langevin

Abstract

Among the goals followed in the present study are: first~' to do justice to the contributions to relativity by Poincaré, Langevin and other neglected work; secondly, to consider their work when it was interesting per se regardless of its external influence (or lack of it); thirdly, to concentrate frequently on mathematical aspects of problems, (following the method of E. Whittaker) since I am convinced of the inadequacy of all the qualitative treatments; fourthIy, to demolish the unwritten law that a thesis or a work on the history of science should be uniformly dull, without admitting humorous or entertaining passages. '__What is meant by relativity here? I shall not systematically discuss the work of earlier men such as Galileo, Huygens, Leibniz, Boskovich, Kant, Mach, E. Mascart and B. Russell. I shall start with Voigt and Lorentz. Confusion will be avoided by distinguishing13 or omitting the philosophical concept of relativity and the common concept of subjective relativity of observers or of sense-perception. __Finally, in analysing the original architecture of relativity one obtains a different structure on consideration of mutual influence rather than just simple chronology, as I have respectively drawn below (Fig. 1), with some crucial links mainly due to the efforts of Holton and Keswani. (from Introduction)