David E. Rowe – författare

The most famous scientist of the twentieth century, Albert Einstein was also one of the century''s most outspoken political activists. Deeply engaged with the events of his tumultuous times, from the two world wars and the Holocaust, to the atomic bomb and the Cold War, to the effort to establish a Jewish homeland, Einstein was a remarkably prolific political writer, someone who took courageous and often unpopular stands against nationalism, militarism, anti-Semitism, racism, and McCarthyism. In Einstein on Politics, leading Einstein scholars David Rowe and Robert Schulmann gather Einstein''s most important public and private political writings and put them into historical context. The book reveals a little-known Einstein--not the ineffectual and naïve idealist of popular imagination, but a principled, shrewd pragmatist whose stands on political issues reflected the depth of his humanity.Nothing encapsulates Einstein''s profound involvement in twentieth-century politics like the atomic bomb. Here we read the former militant pacifist''s 1939 letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt warning that Germany might try to develop an atomic bomb. But the book also documents how Einstein tried to explain this action to Japanese pacifists after the United States used atomic weapons to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events that spurred Einstein to call for international control of nuclear technology.A vivid firsthand view of how one of the twentieth century''s greatest minds responded to the greatest political challenges of his day, Einstein on Politics will forever change our picture of Einstein''s public activism and private motivations.

This volume explores the interplay between mathematical and physical research and the interactions of twentieth-century scientists within their academic communities. Beginning with Einstein’s general theory of relativity, the authors investigate a series of dramatic discoveries and rival theories in physics that influenced the development of modern differential geometry. Other sections recount the numerous methods, like the resurgence of Weyl geometry, used by geometers to solve the problems revealed by those same innovations in space-time physics. The effect of general relativity on astronomy is also addressed, namely how astronomers worked through new theories like inflationary cosmology and Phoenix models.

By including recent historical research and coupling this work with many disciplines’ unique perspectives, this text provides a rich picture of general relativity and cosmology over the course of the twentieth century. The increased study on the documentation of Einstein’s early scientific work has clarified the history of science for that time and profoundly altered the way scientists view their own work, as this interdisciplinary volume demonstrates.

Drawing on original archival material and recent research, this book follows Emmy Noether’s career from her early years in Erlangen up until her tragic death in the United States. After solving a major outstanding problem in Einstein’s theory of relativity, she was finally able to join the Göttingen faculty in 1919. Proving It Her Way offers a new perspective on an extraordinary career, first, by focusing on important figures in Noether’s life and, second, by showing how she selflessly promoted the careers of several other talented individuals. By exploring her mathematical world, it aims to convey the personality and impact of a remarkable mathematician who literally changed the face of modern mathematics, despite the fact that, as a woman, she never held a regular professorship.

Written for a general audience, this study uncovers the human dimensions of Noether’s key relationships with a younger generation of mathematicians. Thematically, the authors took inspiration from their cooperation with the ensemble portraittheater Vienna in producing the play "Diving into Math with Emmy Noether." Four of the young mathematicians portrayed in Proving It Her Way – B.L. van der Waerden, Pavel Alexandrov, Helmut Hasse, and Olga Taussky – also appear in "Diving into Math."

Hermann Weyl, her colleague before both fled to the United States in 1933, fully recognized that Noether’s dynamic school was the very heart and soul of the famous Göttingen community. Beyond her immediate circle of students, Emmy Noether’s lectures and seminars drew talented mathematicians from all over the world. Four of the most important were B.L. van der Waerden, Pavel Alexandrov, Helmut Hasse, and Olga Taussky. Noether’s classic papers on ideal theory inspiredvan der Waerden to recast his research in algebraic geometry. Her lectures on group theory motivated Alexandrov to develop links between point set topology and combinatorial methods. Noether’s vision for a new approach to algebraic number theory gave Hasse the impetus to pursue a line of research that led to the Brauer–Hasse–Noether Theorem, whereas her abstract style clashed with Taussky’s approach to classical class field theory during a difficult time when both were trying to find their footing in a foreign country.

Although similar to Proving It Her Way: Emmy Noether, a Life in Mathematics, this lengthier study addresses mathematically minded readers. Thus, it presents a detailed analysis of Emmy Noether’s work with Hilbert and Klein on mathematical problems connected with Einstein’s theory of relativity. These efforts culminated with her famous paper "Invariant Variational Problems," published one year before she joined the Göttingen faculty in 1919.

This book presents a historical account of Felix Klein''s "Comparative Reflections on Recent Research in Geometry" (1872), better known as his "Erlangen Program.” Originally conceived and written when Klein was collaborating with Sophus Lie, this bold essay initially made little impression on contemporary researchers. Decades later, however, it eventually became a famous classic. Eminent mathematicians hailed Klein’s main message – the role of invariants of transformation groups in geometry – as presaging major developments in mathematics and physics. 

The first part of this book focuses on the prehistory surrounding Klein’s “Erlangen Program,” stressing the motivations that led Klein to write it. The core of the book (Part II) then presents a new translation of Klein''s original text, followed by detailed textual analysis aimed at guiding the reader through its rather terse and opaque prose. Part III deals with its complicated reception history, treated in four periods spanning the years from 1872 to 1930. This culminated during Klein’s lifetime with his efforts to promote the "Erlangen Program” as a framework for interpreting Einstein’s theory of relativity. After his death in 1925, the viability of this framework became a contentious issue among leading differential geometers. Part IV looks back on the transformations in mathematics that led to a modernized interpretation of Klein’s message. The book also explores in depth how the growing fame of the “Erlangen Program” undermined Klein’s friendship with Sophus Lie, leading to a dramatic public break between them in 1893.

Beyond the "Erlangen Program” itself, this book deals with many of Felix Klein’s other works. As an introduction to a largely forgotten world of ideas, this study will appeal not only to experts but also to graduate students and all those with a serious interest in the history of modern mathematics.