"The ABC of relativity", Bertrand Russell (Gbr) first version 1925. In Italian "L'ABC della relatività", published by TEA
"A certain type of superior people really likes to repeat -everything is relative-. This is naturally nonsense, because if -everything- were relative, there would be nothing left with which to be in relation" (Bertrand Russell from "L'ABC della relatività")
As I have already mentioned, in a previous review of mine, it is a controversial operation to review works (especially in the literary field) on which the days, months, and years have already provided all there is to say: but still in that writing, I expressed three precepts which, in my opinion, removed and continue to remove substance from any objection. However, it is important that you keep in mind that “whatever is discussed, in the end, only the Name will remain...”
Some time ago, I came across a DeBaser editorial where a sentence on the (deep) relationship between mathematics and music by Professor Piergiorgio Odifreddi was cited: now putting aside the merits of the discussion (even though a comment about mathematics leading to metaphysics quite horrified me since the thing is in blatant contradiction... but perhaps I'll talk about it another time, if there will be one...) the thing set off in me a chain of cerebral events that led me to take up again some works of the mentioned mathematician to whom, although sometimes showing a blatant scientific dogmatism, it is impossible not to recognize unparalleled popularizing acumen (and without ifs and buts, in my way of seeing things) in this forsaken nation.
“However, he could recognize a genius when he encountered one, and in the book, he behaves accordingly, comparing Einstein's work to the arrival of day after the darkness of night: thereby proving, incidentally, his own intelligence” (Piergiorgio Odifreddi from the preface to "L'ABC della relatività" by Bertrand Russell)
One thing leads to another, and when I found myself (re)reading his “Il Matematico Impertinente” (Longanesi, 2008), in the chapter that echoed, verbatim, his preface to Russell's work, the subject of this review, I couldn't help but take up again (already read in the murky '90s) what is still considered (85 years since its first release: updated versions also came out in '58 and '69) his most important popularizing work: the explanation of the theory of relativity "born from Einstein’s brain in two phases in 1905, the Restricted, and in 1915, the General”. Now things get complicated because Odifreddi’s preface is inevitably the best possible review of the book, and therefore my modest version can only start at a disadvantage if not owed. In recommending to read it (indeed, to read all “Il Matematico Impertinente”), I promise the DeBaser readers to be as “non-citationist” as possible.
“Einstein was a Rockstar, Russell a Popstar”
As I happened to read recently in a book by Brian Greene, to understand Einstein’s relativity (and even more his gravitational law that sent, albeit partially, Newtonian theory into oblivion) a certain amount of imagination is necessary: indeed, the main effort is to forget for a moment what our senses tell us about the world (allowing us to survive according to the parameters of our species) and rely on something that may seem to touch the transcendental but that, instead, has brought us, “poor carbon-based beings dwelling on the third stone orbiting around a ‘median’ star located in a peripheral arm of a not-so-special galaxy” to understand much more about the universe than any metaphysical cause proponent has ever done.
The exceptional thing is that a person like Bertrand Russell (for his adventurous biography I refer you to the link at the beginning of the review: just know that he embraced the popularization cause in mature age and for mere financial reasons) could have “amazed us with special effects” but evidently, he was “science and not science fiction” and instead chose what was the path of the “simple”: he approached Einstein with extreme humility (“Bach must be listened to seated and in silence” the same German-American physicist would have said) and chose, for us ordinary mortals, absolutely accessible words and (especially) examples and comparisons (the one recalled by Odifreddi in the third mini-chapter of this review is memorable and chilling) in addition to a very calm and linear narrative in perfect British style.
He never hid his personal view that Einstein’s theory was more philosophical than purely physical but without ever bringing anything personal, limiting himself to popularization: so brilliant that it earned him (even if not for this book) the Nobel Prize for Literature in '50. Obviously, many concepts remain difficult, but Russell brilliantly bypasses the problem by creating ad hoc chapters for readers unversed in physics and/or mathematics and warns in advance when some paragraph might be too difficult, advising skipping it without prejudicing the main goal: making Einstein accessible to everyone. The fact that more than eighty years later, the book is not (except for a few adjustments explained by Odifreddi in the introduction) outdated shows how immersed in the future Einstein was and how Russell managed to capture its modernity (brilliantly explaining it to the uninitiated) well engraving in our memory that there is nothing relative about the theory of relativity.
Cosmic Laziness
It seems paradoxical to say it for an “old” book talking about a very famous theory, but by reading “L'ABC della relatività”, as Russell himself foresaw in the book’s opening (I report it below), one realizes how much we are still tied to mental concepts that do not correspond to universal ones. We are surprised to realize that, in the end, saying “the Earth revolves around the Sun” is not that different from saying the opposite. We remain fascinated by the fact that objects with mass almost act of their own will, always choosing the easiest path and not responding to any “force” call (which indeed is abolished). Of course, I am simplifying (perhaps too much), and in the course of the decades, books far more "advanced" than this one have been written (remember written a few years after Einstein's discoveries), but if you want to delve into or just begin to be introduced to that wonderful (non-metaphysical) deity that is nature, there is nothing better than to rely on two of the most brilliant minds ever: "one (Russell) tells the other (Einstein)".
“Everyone knows that Einstein did something surprising, but few know exactly what he did” (Bertrand Russell from "L'ABC della Relatività")
Mo.
P.S.: The quotes in italics and/or bold are all “citations”: I have mentioned the author of some of them, for others, I had fun leaving you to search.
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