The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas
from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta
is a science book for the lay reader, by Albert
Einstein and Leopold Infeld, tracing the development
of ideas in physics.
It was originally published in 1938 by Cambridge
University Press.
It was a popular success, and was featured
in a Time magazine cover story.
== Background of collaboration ==
Einstein agreed to write the book partly as
a way to help Infeld financially.
Infeld collaborated briefly in Cambridge with
Max Born, before moving to Princeton, where
he worked with Einstein at the Institute for
Advanced Study.
Einstein tried to get Infeld a permanent position
there, but failed.
Infeld came up with a plan to write a history
of physics with Einstein, which was sure to
be successful, and split the royalties.
When he went to Einstein to pitch the idea,
Infeld became incredibly tongue-tied, but
he was finally able to stammer out his proposal.
“This is not at all a stupid idea,” Einstein
said.
"Not stupid at all.
We shall do it."
The book was published by Simon & Schuster.
== Book's point of view ==
In the book, Albert Einstein pushed his realist
approach to physics in defiance of much of
quantum mechanics.
Belief in an “objective reality,” the
book argued, had led to great scientific advances
throughout the ages, thus proving that it
was a useful concept even if not provable.
“Without the belief that it is possible
to grasp reality with our theoretical constructions,
without the belief in the inner harmony of
our world, there could be no science,” the
book declared.
“This belief is and always will remain the
fundamental motive for all scientific creation.”
In addition, Einstein used the text to defend
the utility of field theories amid the advances
of quantum mechanics.
The best way to do that was to view particles
not as independent objects but as a special
manifestation of the field itself: "Could
we not reject the concept of matter and build
a pure field physics?
We could regard matter as the regions in space
where the field is extremely strong.
A thrown stone is, from this point of view,
a changing field in which the states of the
greatest field intensity travel through space
with the velocity of the stone."
== Contents ==
The book has four chapters: The Rise of The
Mechanical View; The Decline of the Mechanical
View; Field, Relativity; and Quanta.
The third chapter (Field, Relativity) examines
lines of force starting with gravitational
fields (i.e., a physical collection of forces),
moving on to descriptions of electric and
magnetic fields.
The authors explain that they are attempting
to "translate familiar facts from the language
of fluids...into 
the new language of fields."
They state that the Faraday, Maxwell, and
Hertz experiments led to modern physics.
They describe how "The change of an electric
field produced by the motion of a charge is
always accompanied by a magnetic field."
The two pillars of the field theory (pp. 142–148)
The reality of the field (pp. 148–156)
Field and ether (pp. 156–160)
The mechanical scaffold (pp. 160–171)
Ether and motion (pp. 172–186)
Time, distance, relativity (pp. 186–202)
Relativity and mechanics (pp. 202–209)
The time-space continuum (pp. 209–220)
General relativity (pp. 220–226).
== Reception ==
=== Partial list of reviews ===
Booklist v. 34 (Apr. 15 1938).
New York Herald Tribune (May 8, 1938).
The Boston Transcript (Apr. 30 1938).
The Open Shelf (Mar. 1938).
Commonweal v. 28 (July 8, 1938).
Manchester Guardian (Apr. 12 1938).
The Nation v. 146 (May 7, 1938).
Nature v. 141 (May 21, 1938).
The 
New Republic v. 94 (Apr. 20 1938).
New Technical Books v. 23 (Apr. 1938).
The New York Times (Early City Edition) (Apr.
10 1938).
Pratt Institute Quarterly List of New Technical
and Industry Books (winter 1939).
Saturday Review of Literature v. 17 (Apr.
2 1938).
Scientific Book Club Review v. 9 (Mar. 1938).
Spectator v. 161 (Aug. 26 1938).
Springfield Republican (July 3, 1938).
Survey Graphic v. 27 (Dec. 1938).
The Times Literary Supplement (Apr. 9 1938).
The Yale Review v. 27 (summer 1938).
== See also ==
The Feynman Lectures on Physics (Feynman)
The Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory
(Heisenberg)
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (Dirac
