The Einstein Tower
Subtitle: an intertexture of dynamic construction, relativity theory, and astronomy
By: Klaus Hentschel ; translated by Ann M. Hentschel.
Series: Writing science
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Stanford, Calif
Language: eng
Number of pages: 226
Subjects: Einstein Tower -- History; Astronomical observatories -- Germany -- Potsdam -- History; Astrophysics -- Research -- Germany -- Potsdam -- History; General relativity (Physics) -- Research -- Germany -- Potsdam -- History; Astronomers -- Germany -- Biography; Physicists -- Biography
Description: This book focuses on the "Einstein Tower," an architecturally historic observatory built in Potsdam in 1920 to allow the German astronomer Erwin Finlay Freundlich to attempt to verify experimentally Einstein's general theory of relativity. Freundlich, who was the first German astronomer to show a genuine interest in Einstein's theory, managed to interest his architect friend Erich Mendelsohn in designing this unique building.

Freundlich's researches were not a success; he came to doubt the very theory he was attempting to prove. (Adequate technology to test Einstein's theory lay many decades in the future.) By contrast, as an experiment in modernist architecture, the building led to international fame for Mendelsohn.

To develop a full historical picture of this moment in the history of science, the book interweaves several descriptive levels: the biography of Freundlich; the social context in which he interacted with teachers, co-workers, students, his patrons (including Einstein), and scientific opponents; the cognitive aspects of his attempts to verify Einstein's theory; the political milieu within the Berlin scientific research community; and a cross-national comparison of astrophysics.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [191]-219) and index.