Early Life and Works
Schlick was born in Berlin to a wealthy family, his father was Ernst Albert Schlick and his mother was Agnes Arndt. He studied physics at Heidelberg, Lausanne, and, ultimately, the University of Berlin under Max Planck. In 1904, he completed his dissertation essay, "Über die Reflexion des Lichts in einer inhomogenen Schicht" ("On the Reflection of Light in a Non-Homogeneous Medium"). After a year as Privatdozent at Göttingen, he turned to the study of Philosophy in Zurich. In 1908, he published Lebensweisheit ("The Wisdom of Life"), a slim volume about eudaemonism, the theory that happiness is the highest ethical pursuit. His habilitation essay, "Das Wesen der Wahrheit nach der modernen Logik" ("The Nature of Truth According to Modern Logic"), was published in 1910. Several essays about aesthetics followed, whereupon Schlick turned his attention to problems of epistemology, the philosophy of science, and more general questions about science. In this last category, Schlick distinguished himself by publishing a paper in 1915 about Einstein's special theory of relativity, a topic only ten years old. He also published Raum und Zeit in der gegenwärtigen Physik ("Space and Time in Modern Physics"), which extended his earlier results by applying Poincaré's geometric conventionalism to explain Einstein's adoption of a non-Euclidean geometry in the General Theory of Relativity.
Read more about this topic: Moritz Schlick
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or works:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“[In early adolescence] she becomes acutely aware of herself as a being perceived by others, judged by others, though she herself is the harshest judge, quick to list her physical flaws, quick to undervalue and under-rate herself not only in terms of physical appearance but across a wide range of talents, capacities and even social status, whereas boys of the same age will cite their abilities, their talents and their social status pretty accurately.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)
“Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees,
A Frenchman couldn’t get his human rating!”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The man who builds a factory builds a temple, that the man who works there worships there, and to each is due, not scorn and blame, but reverence and praise.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)