ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Shifting Perspectives on Histories of Gravity and Mass 1

Session Submission Type: Organized Session

English Abstract

Investigations of gravity and mass have continually reshaped the methods, boundaries, and ambitions of physical inquiry. From classical gravitation to general relativity, from unified field theories to quantum gravity, the pursuit of these problems has transformed both the substance and the structure of physics. At the same time, historians of science have begun to re-examine how these transformations have been narrated, questioning canonical periodizations, highlighting neglected contexts, and revealing theplural trajectories through which research on gravity and mass has developed. This symposium explore how work on gravity and mass has reflected and driven changes in modern physics. Its contributions reassess established historiographies, challenge conventional narratives, and highlight the diverse intellectual, material, and institutional settings in which these lines of inquiry have evolved.

This symposium is sponsored by the Inter-Union Commission for the History and Philosophy of Physics (IUCHPP), a commission of the IUPAP and the DHST/IUHPST.

Sub Unit

• Organized Session

Chair

• Jean-Philippe Martinez, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)

Individual Presentations

• Similitude and Scalar Gravity: Tolman's Principle and Nordström's Theory - Mahmoud Jalloh, Caltech

• The Viennese Approach to General Relativity: A Philosophical Analysis of Guido Beck’s Exposition in the 1929 Handbuch der Physik - Alexandre Sampaio da Cruz, Brazilian Center for Research in Physics (CBPF); Rafael Velloso Luz, Unicamp

• Deriving Gravity: 20th Century Machian Models and the Zitterbewegung Hypothesis - Jonathan Emile Fay, University of Bristol

Session Organizers

• Jean-Philippe Martinez, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)

• Bernadette Lessel, Uni Bonn

• Robert van Leeuwen, University of Amsterdam