Rating: 
Summary: 40%
Review: "Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps" is, ironically, the most oddly out-of-synch book title I've seen when it comes to reflecting the content of the work. This was a story of establishing commonality of time and measuring longitude. "Poincare's maps" occupied less than 5 pages (although I do recognize the broader application to his contribution to longitude measurement), and "Einsteins clocks" was a mechanism to bring a universally-known scientific name to a French science apologist's account of Poincare's accomplishments. Had this book simply told the story of synchronizing clocks and learning how to measure longitude, it would have been a worthwhile read. The inclusion of and stretched comparisons to Einstein left the work disjointed, as well as leaving the reader with the impression the author has an axe to grind. Galison seems almost personally offended that Einstein dismissed Poincare as a scientific relic whose relevance had faded. I would recommend the 40% of this book that dealt with time and longitude. 2/5 seems an appropriate rating...
Rating: 
Summary: An intriguing and enthusiastically recommended coverage
Review: Einstein and Poincare were two inventors who made parallel attempts to harness time and helped create the science of relativity; but no single study has previously drawn such close links between the efforts of the young German physicist Einstein and the mathematician Poincare. Peter Galison's Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps expertly examines the achievements and details of each, and in doing so incorporats new information drawn from forgotten patents, rare photos, and archived materials to chart a little-known but inherently fascinating race toward a theory of time. An important addition to school and community library History of Science collections, Einstein's Clocks, Poincare's Maps is an exciting, intriguing and enthusiastically recommended coverage.
Rating:
Summary: I'm sorry; I don't get the connection?
Review: Good try Mr. Galison! What better way to pump up the historical significance of a fellow Frenchman? You got it... splatter his name on the cover of a book with that of Einstein. Viva La France!! But seriously, the book does have its interesting moments. The intertwined history of longitude, time zones, telegraphy, light-speed limitation, GPS, etc. is informative as well as fascinating when viewed from the vantage point of today's time synchronized society! However, I was not convinced, by this work, that Poincare was a "giant at the foundation of modern science", "converging, step by step" with Einstein on what is the modern day notion of relativity theory. I suspect that Poincare, as the president of the French Bureau of Longitude would have accepted a "relative" or "absolute" concept of time, since his prime objective was that of putting an "ordered" notion of time keeping (with Paris as prime meridian, I might add) into operation. Precision; repeatability; utility; universal convention, being the words of the day! All of these aspects could and were being implemented with no application of relativity/time dialation theory; the limited speed of light and or electrical signal being "understood" and compensated for where needed for precision longitude determination. My point: I don't see relativistic effects as significant or determinative in terms of Poincare's life work. The story of time/longitude is a fascinating one; Poincare's story could have stood on it's own. The injection of patent-clerk Einstein is merely jacket cover bait.
Rating:
Summary: The Fruits of the Pursuit of Synchrony
Review: It is so easy to tell when one thing happens simultaneously with another. You just see them both happen at the same time, simple. But let's say you are very sensitive to the speed of light, so sensitive that you can tell the difference in the interval between light coming from five miles away or ten miles away. Imagine yourself on a mountain and you see simultaneous lightning strikes on mountains that are both five miles away from you. You see the light from both at the same time; simultaneity is easy to spot. But now imagine the lightning hits simultaneously a mountain five miles away and another ten miles away. You now see one lightning strike well before the other. Where did the simultaneity go? It has suddenly gotten complicated and elusive. _Einstein's Clocks, Poincaré's Maps: Empires of Time_ by Peter Galison (Norton) is the story of what happened when two quite different thinkers contemplated the problem of simultaneity, and also of how people have done their best to promulgate an increasingly accurate time within their cities, countries, and the world. Quite famously, the young Albert Einstein was a mere minor bureaucrat in the Patent Office in Berne starting in 1902. Galison shows that time synchronization had to be on his mind because some of the patents he examined were for gadgets to help keep clocks in synchrony. Synchronized clocks were becoming increasingly important, for keeping trains from hitting each other, and then to keep microseconds from interfering with mapmaking. Poincaré was President of France's Board of Longitude, and synchrony was vital to him as he sent time-signals to cartographers in, say, South America. If the sent time was off due to cable delivery, the map might be half a kilometer in error. Poincaré's contemplations of synchrony led him to a mathematical concept of relativity that preceded Einstein's. Poincaré, however, didn't take the leap to eliminate the ether as Einstein did. This is not a book to explain relativity. It is a broad history of modern timekeeping, and since Poincaré is a relatively obscure figure, his polymathic additions to different fields of knowledge will be astonishing to most readers. It especially concentrates on how there was a complex historic interplay between theories and mechanisms, abstract and concrete inventions, that brought our current understanding of relativity about. It is a stimulating work, sometimes not easy to get through and certainly not easy to summarize. But there are intriguing insights about the two personalities involved, and fascinating explanations of the give and take in mathematics, engineering, philosophy, and physics eventually that allowed relativity to be understood.
Rating: 
Summary: On balance, a valuable read
Review: Mr. Malvin's criticisms are dead on. The book could have been shorter and tighter, and the cute word play is distracting (e.g., ". . . George Airy could not be so breezily toppled."). That said, the book was very interesting. I had not been familiar with the history. I had believed Einstein pulled an extremely radical notion out his hat. The book convincingly demonstrated why the theory of special relativity was ripe for Einstein's discovery at the turn of the 20th century. Also, I was not familiar with Poincare, who apparently was tantalizingly close to beating Einstein to the punch. Unlike some other reviewers, I did not think the book was overly technical. For people with no physics background (like me), the technical issues might have been further explained and explored.
Rating: 
Summary: Why precise clocks and zero longitude are needed
Review: Primitive humans had only two times, light time for living and dark time for hiding. The development of agriculture demanded the refinement of a seasonal calendar so that the crops could be planted at the appropriate time. This was only the first step in the simultaneous development of more accurate clocks and advanced technology. The dangers of navigating the seas required the precise computation of longitude, which required an accurate clock and the determination of a point of zero longitude. A growing network of railroad tracks with multiple trains using them required that the trains have highly synchronized timepieces. A difference of less than a minute could lead to a collision and there was several crashes due to such differences.
These problems led to an international effort to establish a universal time and an international agreement as to the placement of zero longitude. Henri Poincare was a leader of the movement to establish these standards and in this book the historical background explaining why they were needed is given. There were also many social and political forces that required many compromises between those who were pushing their nationalist agenda. The story of how the logical solution of zero longitude was set at Greenwich is a story of how international agreements can be reached.
The most interesting story is how the requirements of synchronized time led Albert Einstein to his theory of relativity. His primary conclusion was that it is impossible. The finite and fixed speed of light meant that synchronization could only be done within the bounds of that restriction. It is amazing to consider all of the consequences of this simple premise and those consequences are explained in detail. The most fascinating statistic in the book deals with the need for a relativistic correction in the Global Positions System (GPS) signals. This satellite system allows for the pinpointing of a position on the earth within a few feet. If no relativistic corrections were made, then after only a single day, the error in the GPS system would be on the order of six miles.
This is a book on a very specific and necessary area of technological advancement. One measure of the improvement in technology is the precision of our clocks and from this book, you can see why it is important and in many ways necessary. The primary downside is the last chapter, where about twenty pages could have been deleted without any loss of critical information.
Rating:
Summary: Don't waste your time.
Review: This is a book that I had no difficulty putting down, and did many times. Its author, purportedly a historian, should have at least written an outline before setting his thoughts to pen. I still don't quite know why Poincare's syncronus clock acheivments are related to Einstein's theory of relativity and certainly the author's several attempts to explain relativity by example is gibberish. Save your money and buy a good clock.
Rating:
Summary: At Last!
Review: True, the title of the book is a bit decieving, since it does not specifially talk much about Poincare's maps..and keeps the audience wondering and wanting more in that section. Similarly this is not a book to learn much about Relativity either. However, I think a book like such was much awaited. For the first time someone has done the folowing: 1. Taken the mystic out of Einstien, and showed him a man of his time.
2. Made us understand that why Einstien thought so persistently about simultaniety.
3. How the Physicist Einstien was also a product of his training at the Patent office. This is an angle which no one touched before. The book is unique, and should be read by whoever is a good student of Einstien and his theories. As it does bring him out of the clouds, and puts him back on earth, and makes him human again. Which is a must have.
Rating:
Summary: At Last!
Review: True, the title of the book is a bit decieving, since it does not specifially talk much about Poincare's maps..and keeps the audience wondering and wanting more in that section. Similarly this is not a book to learn much about Relativity either. However, I think a book like such was much awaited. For the first time someone has done the folowing: 1. Taken the mystic out of Einstien, and showed him a man of his time.
2. Made us understand that why Einstien thought so persistently about simultaniety.
3. How the Physicist Einstien was also a product of his training at the Patent office. This is an angle which no one touched before. The book is unique, and should be read by whoever is a good student of Einstien and his theories. As it does bring him out of the clouds, and puts him back on earth, and makes him human again. Which is a must have.
Rating:
Summary: An Interesting Excursion into an Interesting Period
Review: Unfortunately, I don't think this subject warrants a book of this length. Whilst there is a story there, it could have been much shorter, and so the book drags it all out, wandering off at tangents before coming back. The illustrations & photographs were poorly reproduced and poorly chosen - why we needed to see the public clocks in Berne that Einstein would have seen on his way to work confused me.
| 
