I. Introduction
In his classic book Relativity: The Special and the General Theory, Albert Einstein gave a famous argument for the relativity of simultaneity, i.e., for the thesis that the simultaneity/non-simultaneity of two events in time at different locations in space is relative to the reference frame that the events are observed in and that not all reference frames will be in agreement with respect to which events are simultaneous/non-simultaneous. Further, Einstein argues that all reference frames are equally valid and that the notion of frame-transcendent simultaneity is meaningless. Einstein concludes from all of this that there is no relation of absolute simultaneity. In this post, I shall give a detailed summary and logical reconstruction of Einstein’s argumentation and then offer a critique of it. I will argue that Einstein’s conclusion that there is no relation of absolute simultaneity relies on the logical positivist principle of verification. Insofar as this principle is false (as is widely acknowledged), Einstein’s argument fails to show that there is no relation of absolute simultaneity and is thus unsound. As will be seen, this failure has some important upshots.
