Relativity and the End of Empires

Positivism – 19th century – Auguste Comte By the 19th century, advances in science, tech., and industry had scientists and philosophers believing they were close to figuring out the universe Positivism: Three phases: 1) primitive, 2) organized religion, and 3) positive phase To Comte and others, Westerners were on the verge of figuring out all of the universal laws that governed how the world worked, and how human society worked Furthermore, they thought they could figure out and complete the perfect society This ideal was held optimistically until the early 20th century, when scientific discoveries and events such as WWI shattered the idea that the universe or society could be perfected

Relativity in Science By the 1900s, Western society had drastically advanced science and modernization Based on what they knew at the time, they believed there were certain basic laws of the universe that they could understand, control, and manipulate Starting in 1905, Albert Einstein released a series of papers that complete rejected all notions of known scientific law and restructured our understanding of the universe Einstein argued time and space were not constant—they were relative—always changing, and dependent on the situation Discoveries in science (mostly Einstein and Max Planck) would no longer provide simple, constant solutions to the operations of the world

Discoveries Knowledge-shattering theories/discoveries Time, space, and gravity are relative and interactive Space and time are related and limited the speed of light Time and space could bend and tear (black/white holes and worm holes) Energy and matter are interchangeable (Max Planck – Quantum Physics) (E = mc^2) – matter could convert to energy Atoms were not the smallest particles (discovery of electrons) Light behaved differently (sometimes waves, sometimes particles) Subatomic particles and light demonstrated all possibilities at once (only existed in one spot when measured) In short, scientists discovered we have no control over the randomness of the universe, and could not ‘master’ or completely understand it