PIMS-PWIAS Special Lecture: Karl Sigmund

Albert Einstein is usually associated with Zürich, Bern, Berlin or Princeton, rather than Vienna. However, his Viennese contacts were many-sided and highly relevant for his work. Ernst Mach had a major influence on the general theory of relativity (the "Mach principle"), and Kurt Gödel discovered its most paradoxical consequence (the possibility of time travel into the past). In addition, Friedrich Adler, Hans Thirring, Erwin Schrödinger and the thinkers of the Vienna Circle were important companions of Einstein. The lecture will not only trace a highly dramatic story replete with murder and flight, fakes and nervous breakdowns, but also highlight a central topic of general relativity: the interplay of gravitation and inertia, and their effects on rotating bodies.