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André Metz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

André Metz (4 November 1891 in Santo Domingo – 16 December 1968) was a French officer and popularizer of physics.

Life and work

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He attended the École Polytechnique (1910). He was an Engineer officer and directed the Revue du génie militaire from 1933 to 1937, and became brigadier general in 1946. He was a member of the Société Française de Physique and Société française de Philosophie, and was awarded the Prix Binoux (1928), the Prix Ch. Lambert (1963), and the Prix Henri Becquerel (1967).[1]

Among his popularizations of physics, he is best known for his defense of Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, in particular against the philosopher Henri Bergson, which was appreciated by Einstein in a letter exchange with Metz (see Hentschel[2] and Canales[3] for details). He was also a proponent of the philosophy of Émile Meyerson.

Publications (selection)

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  • La Relativité (Paris 1923 — augmented edition 1926)
  • Meyerson (Alcan, Paris 1926 – augmented edition 1934)
  • Bergson (Paris 1933)
  • Science et réalité (Sedes, Paris 1964)

References

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  1. ^ Actes du XIVe Congrès international de philosophie, Vienne du 2 au 9 septembre 1968, p. 651
  2. ^ See section 5.2 in Hentschel, K. (1990). Interpretationen und Fehlinterpretationen der speziellen und der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie durch Zeitgenossen Albert Einsteins. Basel—Boston—Bonn: Birkhäuser. doi:10.18419/opus-7182. ISBN 978-3-7643-2438-4.
  3. ^ See chapter 13 in Canales, J. (2015), The Physicist and the Philosopher: Einstein, Bergson, and the Debate That Changed Our Understanding of Time, Princeton University Press, ISBN 1400865778