Talk:Max Bernhard Weinstein

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For scientific purposes this kind of collaboration seems to have become absolutely necessary. The results may still be chronicled by individuals. Yet even that is difficult, if the whole field is to be surveyed. Prof. Max B. Weinstein has set himself this difficult task in his Welt- und Leben-Anschauungen. He thinks that no other work has as yet appeared that is so comprehensive as his. He has undertaken to describe the views of the world that have been held in all ages, from the views of primitive folk to those of Haeckel and Eucken. And his book does give a useful survey of nearly the whole field. Naturally, individual readers will find many matters omitted about which they would expect to have information. Tastes differ. A real fault in the book seems to us to be that sometimes matters seem to be mentioned merely for the sake of including a name. The name appears in the index, but practically no information is given. Since Prof. Weinstein emphasises the fact that his book is not meant to be a history of conceptions of life and the world, such references to matters about which no information is given might well have been dispensed with. Another weakness of the work is that no authorities are given. In a work of this kind it is of the utmost importance that a reader should be able to verify statements for himself. The references to authorities would also have supplied a bibliography. While, therefore, Weinstein's book is in many ways extremely interesting, it is in some respects disappointing. Reference: Maurice A. Canney, in Review of Theology & Philosophy edited by Allan Menzies, Volume 7, pages 576-577.

Max Bernhard Weinstein, titular professor of physics and Privatdozent at the University of Berlin, emphasized in a general article of 1913 that many serious researchers saw in the principle of relativity a threat to the sound development of science, and for this reason they were demanding a return of earlier visions. In this view they were right, insofar as

the meaning of this principle has often been extended so far and without reflection that an intolerable intolerance of other opinions has developed to the most silly assertions, which is almost comparable to medieval constraint of belief [Glaubenszwang].

Weinstein, unlike Planck, saw Minkowski as the largest revolutionary figure. In his exhaustive, 1913 summary of relativity physics, Weinstein observed that, in Minkowski's formalism, complex equations belonged to reality, in contrast to the way that, previously, complex equations really had no proper association with physical objects. In his view, "that certainly means one of the greatest Umwalzungen in our familiar views."

The Comparative Reception of Relativity, Page 68, by T.F Glick, 1987