PHYSICIST Einstein Once Had Important Public Debate With PHILOSOPHER Bergson About the Nature of Time. We Live in Einstein’s Winning Wake… And Machines Work On His Model Well. But The Human Mind is Not a Machine, and Quickly Dies When Forced Into the Mold of One.

In 1922, Albert Einstein and the great French philosopher Henri Bergson publicly debated the nature of time. In The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time, historian of science Jimena Canales tells the remarkable story of how this clash impacted fields from logical positivism to quantum mechanics and drove a rift between science and the humanities that persists today. Further, she explains how then-new technologies—such as wristwatches, radio, and film—helped shape people’s conceptions of time. This program is presented in partnership with the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, University of Illinois.

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