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Relativity

7th June 2013

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On Radio 4’s In Our Time this week, Melvyn Bragg and his guests discussed Einstein’s theories of relativity. If you listen from 09:25 it may help release the Wittgensteinian linguistic fly in the bottle that often sees the cultural reification of time (a pure concept) as a material thing rather than space-time (an actual thing in certain place at a certain time) which allows relativity to give rise to all those lovely sci-fi paradoxes.

Go on, you know you want to!

Einstein’s theories of relativity
Relativity (image: bbc.co.uk)
“Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Einstein’s theories of relativity. Between 1905 and 1917 Albert Einstein formulated a theoretical framework which transformed our understanding of the Universe. The twin theories of Special and General Relativity offered insights into the nature of space, time and gravitation which changed the face of modern science. Relativity resolved apparent contradictions in physics and also predicted several new phenomena, including black holes. It’s regarded today as one of the greatest intellectual achievements of the twentieth century, and had an impact far beyond the world of science.”

“When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That’s relativity.”—Albert Einstein

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Tags: In Our Time.

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