Can we trust Einstein's accounts of the genesis of special relativity?

There are three kinds of sources available to reconstruct the reflections that led Einstein to special relativity: a few contemporary letters and documents, his impersonal accounts of the genesis of this theory, and recollections of his own path. At first glance, contradictions within and between these sources hamper the reliability of Einstein's accounts. Yet, a closer analysis reveals much more consistency than foreseen and helps eliminate the dubious, contradictory elements. It then becomes possible to combine the three kinds of sources to produce a minimally speculative and yet fairly coherent account of the genesis of special relativity.

The Gibbs Paradox: Early History and Solutions.

This article is a detailed history of the Gibbs paradox, with philosophical morals. It purports to explain the origins of the paradox, to describe and criticize solutions of the paradox from the early times to the present, to use the history of statistical mechanics as a reservoir of ideas for clarifying foundations and removing prejudices, and to relate the paradox to broad misunderstandings of the nature of physical theory.

The mystery of the Einstein-Poincaré connection.

This essay discusses attempts that have been made to explain the striking similarities between two theories propounded in 1905 by Albert Einstein and Henri Poincaré without any mutual reference.

Number and measure: Hermann von Helmholtz at the crossroads of mathematics, physics, and psychology.

In 1887 Helmholtz discussed the foundations of measurement in science as a last contribution to his philosophy of knowledge. This essay borrowed from earlier debates on the foundations of mathematics (Grassmann/Du Bois), on the possibility of quantitative psychology (Fechner/Kries, Wundt/Zeller), and on the meaning of temperature measurement (Maxwell,Mach.). Late nineteenth-century scrutinisers of the foundations of mathematics (Dedekind, Cantor, Frege, Russell) made little of Helmholtz's essay. Yet it inspired two mathematicians with an eye on physics (Poincaré and Hölder), and a few philosopher-physicists (Mach, Duhem,Campbell). The aim of the present paper is to situate Helmholtz's contribution in this complex array of nineteenth-century philosophies of number, quantity, and measurement.