Eren Simsek
My research at a glance
Research projects
Uncovering the secrets of the history of science
2014
Building on Descartes-Newton research, in my work Principia (Simsek, 2014) I compared Descartes ' Principia Philosophiae (1644) ( The Principles of Philosophy ) and Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) ( The Mathematical Principles of the Philosophy of Nature ). (Both books are now simply referred to as Principia .) This comparison revealed that Newton, who was well-versed in Descartes' writings, not only based his work on Descartes' Principia in name, but also in content (Simsek, 2014, pp. 109-110, 151-152). He not only adopts the number of his three Newtonian laws, but also Descartes' concept (Simsek, 2014, pp. 154-163), as well as his erroneous law of refraction (Simsek, 2014, pp. 208, 209-210). Finally, in his book Optics, Newton even goes so far as to refer to his Principia as principles of philosophy (Simsek, 2014, p. 187). I described this at the time as a delayed dialogue (Simsek, 2014, p. 7). My work thus demonstrates the importance of dialogue in science.
The work also had an influence on the physics textbooks Sexl and Apolin (e.g. Simsek, 2014, p. 182, 469, 343)
2021
In his article "The Inexhaustible Albert Einstein" (Sexl, 1985), Roman U. Sexl writes that "some essential questions in the history of science, particularly concerning the origins of the special theory of relativity," remain "open" (Sexl, 1985, p. 35) and emphasizes: "One of the most interesting questions concerns Einstein's sources" (Sexl, 1985, p. 35). In this context, he makes the important point of taking a closer look at Einstein's Kyoto speech (1922), or the "unofficial Nobel Prize acceptance speech" (Sexl, 1985, p. 36). This speech, in which Einstein explains the history of the development of the (special and general) theories of relativity, is of particular interest to Mach-Einstein research because Einstein frequently refers to Mach in it. Neither the historical context of the speech has been investigated in Mach-Einstein research to date, nor has any attempt been made to reconstruct its content (based on current sources). Considering the historical context, this lecture partly represents Einstein's reaction to the (falsified) preface in *The Principles of Physical Optics* (Mach, 1921), in which Mach was portrayed as an opponent of the theory of relativity, by highlighting the important epistemological role Mach's work had for him. Based on the new findings in Mach-Einstein research (Sexl, 1985) (Wolters, 1987) (Barbour & Pfister, 1995a) (Mach, 2012) (Wolters, 2019) (Mach, 2020), I have therefore reconstructed the history of the development of the (Special and General) Theory of Relativity and also the content of the Kyoto Speech , using currently available sources - such as The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein - from a historical perspective and analyzed Mach's influence on it in more detail.
Media: Tracing Albert Einstein's influences
Scientific article in Annalen der Physik : Einstein's Kyoto Lecture, or the “Unofficial Nobel Prize Speech”
Short video about the article: Einstein's Kyoto Lecture, or the “Unofficial Nobel Prize Speech”
Employment as a physics teacher (high school)
Since 2011