On April 6, 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein and Henri Bergson publicly debated the concept of time. Einstein considered Bergson's theory of time a superficial, psychological notion, irreconcilable with the quantitative realities of physics. Bergson, who gained fame as a philosopher by arguing that time should not be understood solely through the lens of science, criticized Einstein's theory as metaphysics grafted onto science, one that ignored the intuitive aspects of time. The Physicist and the Philosopher tells the remarkable story of how this explosive debate transformed our understanding of time and exacerbated a divide between science and the humanities that persists to this day.

In this work, Jimena Canales presents the revolutionary ideas of Einstein and Bergson, their subsequent clash, and the repercussions of this collision. A masterful and revealing account that shows how scientific truth was tested in a divided century, marked by a new sense of time.