How do historians of science understand Einstein\'s reformulation of simultaneity in his 1905 theory of special relativity? Usually they consider that move a quasi-philosophical leap made possible by Einstein\'s "dis"-connection from the standard physics of the day. While Einstein was thinking about simultaneity, he was employed at a lowly job at the Swiss Patent Office. What did his day work there have to do with relativity? Nothing, is the usual view In this lecture Peter Galison will argue to the contrary that Einstein\'s patent work located him squarely in the middle of a wealth of cultural discussions and patents surrounding the coordination of clocks along railway lines and throughout the cities of central Europe. Understanding the history of coordinated clocks makes Einstein\'s relativity work of May 1905 shine in a very different light.

Peter Galison is the Mallinckrodt Professor of the History of Science and Physics at Harvard. He was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1997. Galison\'s work explores the complex interaction among the three prinicipal subcultures of 20th century physics--experimentation, instrumentation, and theory. His books on experiment and instruments, How Experiments End(1987) and Image and Logic(1997), have been widely acclaimed. His research also focuses on cross-currents between physics and other fields. Gallison holds PhDs from Harvard in physics and in the history of science and an MPhil degree in philosophy of science from Cambridge. He held a joint appointment in physics and philosophy at Stanford from 1983 to 1992.