TELEVISION AND WIRELESS: LANGEVIN AND BECQUEREL

In his colorful presentation of relativity in Bologna of the “voyager on a rocket ship” now known as
the twin paradox, Paul Langevin thought of new ways in which the two clocks could be compared
while remaining at a distance from each other: “It is fun to imagine how our explorer and the planet
Earth would see each other mutually live, if they could stay in constant communication by light
signals or by wireless telegraphy, during separation, and thus understand how the asymmetry
between two measures of time is possible.” These peculations made sense in light of the surge in the
development of wireless technology from 1905 (the date of Einstein’s paper) to 1911 (the date of
Langevin’s). Langevin “imagined” a scenario where a voyager sent on a rocket ship traveling at a
speed close to that of light and a stationary observer would communicate wirelessly, using “hertzian
signals,” or wireless telegraphy. He also imagined a scene, anticipatory of television, where “our
explorer and the Earth could see each other live,” through the exchange of luminous signals.5 For
Langevin, the possibility of seeing or communicating the effects of time dilation was used to
illustrate the reality of relativistic effects. Langevin imagined ways not only of sending, receiving, and
comparing time signals but also of actually seeing any temporal processes dilate.

To explain time dilation in his 1905 publication, Einstein had to imagine what would happen if one of
the two clocks in his theory would be “transported” back to meet the other one. Although he did not
yet have the tools to account for the acceleration necessary for changing the direction of motion, he
nonetheless ventured to claim that the clock would slow down during the voyage and that it would
be behind the other. Half a decade later he no longer had to think about actually transporting the
traveling clock back to Earth. Langevin’s explanation, which relied on a technology similar to
television decades before it was invented, showed him ways of thinking about time dilation without
having to include the topic of acceleration into the discussion.

The physicist Jean Becquerel used the example of radio to prove Bergson wrong. Ultimate proof of
Einstein’s theory, and of the equal validity of different times, Becquerel argued, lay in the possibility
of exchanging time signals via telegraph or wireless signals. He used the example of two fictional
observers named Pierre and Paul, famous characters of the twin paradox. According to the theory of
relativity, if one twin would travel outside of Earth close to the speed of light his clock would run
slower compared to that of the twin who remains on Earth. But how could the comparison actually
be made, asked a number of skeptics?