ArgumentThis article contributes to a global history of relativity, by exploring how Einstein’s theory was appropriated in Belgium. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, yet the early-twentieth-century Belgian context, because of its cultural diversity and reflectiveness of global conditions (the principal example being the First World War), proves well-suited to expose transnational flows and patterns in the global history of relativity. The attempts of Belgian physicist Théophile de Donder to contribute to relativity physics during the 1910s and 1920s (...) illustrate the role of the war in shaping the transnational networks through which relativity circulated. The local attitudes of conservative Belgian Catholic scientists and philosophers, who denied that relativity was philosophically significant, exemplify a global pattern: while critics of relativity feared to become marginalized by the scientific, political, and cultural revolutions that Einstein and his theory were taken to represent, supporters sympathized with these revolutions. (shrink)

The history of the dark matter problem can be traced back to at least the 1930s, but it was not until the early 1970s that the issue of ‘missing matter’ was widely recognized as problematic. In the latter period, previously separate issues involving missing mass were brought together in a single anomaly. We argue that reference to a straightforward accumulation of evidence alone is inadequate to comprehend this episode. Rather, the rise of cosmological research, the accompanying renewed interest in the (...) theory of relativity and changes in the manpower division of astronomy in the 1960s are key to understanding how dark matter came to matter. At the same time, this story may also enlighten us on the methodological dimensions of past practices of physics and cosmology. (shrink)