Harald Nordenson

Harald Nordenson (1886–1980) was a Swedish chemist, industrialist and politician best known for his criticisms of the theory of relativity.

Biography

Nordenson was born in Göttingen, Germany on August 10, 1886 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. This book made him a licentiate in theoretical philosophy in Uppsala. It was later developed into his 1969 English book, Relativity, Time and Reality. 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. 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".

Selected publications Relativity, Time and Reality (Allen & Unwin, 1969)