Einstein, Albert - Alfred North Whitehead (essay date 1920)
Alfred North Whitehead (essay date 1920)
SOURCE: "Einstein's Theory," in Essays in Science and Philosophy, Philosophical Library, 1947, pp. 332-42.
[A distinguished English mathematician, philosopher, and educator, Whitehead collaborated with Bertrand Russell on the latter's Principia Mathematica (1910-13), a three-volume treatise on the relationship of logic to mathematics that would eventually inspire the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein in his ground-breaking studies. In the following essay, originally published in the Times Educational Supplement in 1920, Whitehead seeks to explain the major principles of Einstein's work.]
Einstein's work may be analysed into three factors—a principle, a procedure, and an explanation. This discovery of the principle and the procedure constitute an epoch in science. I venture, however, to think that the explanation is faulty, even although it formed the clue by which Einstein...
[The entire page is 3905 words long]
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