Having read both books back to back it seems to me that the second offers an overwhelming answer to questions – of cultural relativity and ethics –raised in the first.
When, for example, he turns the fighter Mike Tyson into a secular martyr-saint, he raises questions about the relativity of victimization, and the presumption of innocence that often accompanies it.
If serious scientists can question Einstein's theory of relativity, then there must be room for debate about the workings and complexities of the Earth's atmosphere.
But Einstein needed to answer the question to invent his theory of relativity, the breakthrough that wrenched science into a new century and enshrined the equivalence of matter and energy.
It was in the context of Weyl's investigation of the space-problem (see §4.2) that Weyl came to appreciate the value of group theory for investigating the mathematical and philosophical foundations of physical theories in general, and for dealing with fundamental questions motivated by the general theory of relativity, in particular.
And although Einstein's development of general relativity was in large part motivated by a desire to implement a general principle of relativity, to wit that all motion is relative motion, that it succeeds in doing so was questioned shortly after the theory was introduced.
The book in question is probably Vector Analysis and the Theory of Relativity, John Hopkins Press, 1922.
Also the recent discovery of the variable nature of the speed of light gives question marks about the validity of Einstein theories of relativity.
This is the realm of relativity, of honest doubt.
That is the hard question, and that is the search for the theory of relativity," he said.
Written with flair, The Curious History of Relativity poses--and answers--the difficult questions raised by Einstein's magnificent intellectual feat.
