Harald Nordenson

Nordenson was born in Göttingen, Germany on August 10, 1886[2] as the son of ophthalmologist Erik Nordenson and his wife Bertha Nordenson, a descendant of Lars Johan Hierta and later a prominent women's activist. He matriculated at Uppsala University in 1906, graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1910, a licentiate degree in 1912 and earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1914, working on colloidal solutions.

Nordenson's choice of subject in Uppsala, physical chemistry, meant that he became part of the circle around Theodor Svedberg, who had become a famous scientist already around 1910 and who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1926.[1] Nordenson served as assistant professor (docent) in physical chemistry in Uppsala 1914–1919.[2] Simultaneous with his research in chemistry, he cultivated an interest in philosophy through his contacts with professor Adolf Phalén, who regarded the analysis of concepts as the most important area of philosophy. This led Nordenson to subject Albert Einstein's theories to a thorough philosophical scrutiny, which led to his first book about Einstein's theories in Swedish in 1922.[3] This book made him a licentiate in theoretical philosophy in Uppsala. It was later developed into his 1969 English book, Relativity, Time and Reality.[4] He studied the philosophy of Axel Hägerström and Phalén, and describes also their opinions about Einstein's theories in his book, together with reviews of many other contributors.

His book, Relativity, Time and Reality, is a controversial critique of Albert Einstein's concepts of time and simultaneity in special relativity.[5] Nordenson attacked Einstein's theory from rules of logic and concluded that "The Theory of Relativity is not physics but philosophy and in my opinion poor philosophy".[5] His arguments have been generally considered invalid.

The primary objection in the first part of his critique is that Einstein's concept of simultaneity, while seemingly not depending on Newtonian time, nevertheless presupposes it:

Both in the Special and the General Theory the characterization of the movement of our system of reference K′ in relation to another presupposes a time concept valid for the whole of space.
Since Einstein rejects classical a priori universal and uniform time, his first task is to create a new time concept, and this he undertakes to do with the aid of the light-ray regulation of clocks. This however, presupposes time relation between distant points in order to identify them and through his reasonings Einstein unconsciously presupposes time in the classical sense.
...
The result is that Einstein's Theory of Relativity is based on the indiscriminate use of the word time in two different meanings which makes his Theory untenable from a logical point of view.

— page 120 of Relativity, Time and Reality

Nordenson was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences in 1930 and of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1948.[1]

• Commander Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star (6 June 1957)[6]

• Relativity, Time and Reality (Allen & Unwin, 1969)

• Harald Nordenson - World Science Database
• "Harald Nordenson". Svenskt biografiskt lexikon (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 29 March 2014. Retrieved 29 March 2014.