The popular reception of Einstein’s relativity in Britain

Abstract

While the scientific impact of Einstein’s Theory of Relativity has been the subject of numerous historical studies in recent times, the popular coverage of this theory outside the scientific field has not yet been fully examined. Relativity not only revolutionized the sciences but also infiltrated mass culture, its reception varying geographically and continuously changing over time. Recent publications have demonstrated how relativity theory substantially influenced the conceptual development of various non-scientific fields, such as the arts and literature. For instance, Henry (2003) has written on the effect of Einstein’s relativity on the writings of Virginia Woolf, Parkinson (2008) has established the significance of relativity on the Surrealist movement, and Henderson (2008, 2013) has examined its influence on the arts, especially during the 1920s and 1930s. These books challenge the assumed schism between the humanities and sciences by seeking to recoup the interconnections and exchanges of these two areas of interest, establishing a greater sense of interdisciplinary fluidity. Furthermore, this recent scholarship has demonstrated the need for a comprehensive examination of general sources on the Theory of Relativity in order to further our understanding of relativity’s larger social impact. Katy Price’s book Loving Faster Than Light: Romance and Readers in Einstein’s Universe is a significant step in documenting the diversity of sources through which relativity was disseminated to a general audience in Britain following its popularization in 1919. Taking account of social, political and economic factors in her discussion, the first three chapters of Price’s book examine the coverage of relativity in Britain’s daily newspapers, popular science journals and pulp fiction series. Here Price demonstrates her extensive research of these under-examined ephemeral sources, providing an overview of their standard of scholarship, examining how they varied according to their different editorial objectives and target audiences. The remaining three chapters of this book are focused on the