Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation: A selection of material from the essays submitted in the competition for the Eugene Higgins prize of $5,000Bird, J. Malcolm (James Malcolm)
Philosophy
Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation: A selection of material from the essays submitted in the competition for the Eugene Higgins prize of $5,000
Bird, J. Malcolm (James Malcolm)
Relativity (Physics)
Mr. Francis' discussion of this part of the subject, and especially his
figure, ought to make it clear that this theorem can be considered
as dealing with the distance between any two points. When we so
consider it, and take it as the fundamental, defining postulate of
Euclidean geometry which distinguishes this geometry from others,
we have a statement of considerable content. We have, first, that the
characteristic property of Euclidean space is that the distance between
two points is given by the square root of the sum of the squares of
the coordinate-differences for these points--by the expression
$$D = \sqrt{(X - x)^2 + (Y - y)^2 + (Z - z)^2}\,,$$
where the large letters represent the coordinates of the one point
and the small ones those of the other. We have more than this,
however; we have that this distance is the same for all observers,
no matter how different their values for the individual coordinates
of the individual points. And we have, finally, as a direct result of
looking upon the thing from this viewpoint, that the expression for $D$
is an "invariant"; which simply means that every observer may use the
same expression in calculating the value of $D$ in terms of his own
values for the coordinates involved. The distance between two points
in our space is given numerically by the square root of the sum of the
squares of my coordinate-differences for the two points involved; it
is given equally by the square root of the sum of the squares of your
coordinate-differences, or those of any other observer whatsoever. We
have then a natural law--the fundamental natural law characterizing
Euclidean space. If we wish to apply it to the Euclidean two-space (the
plane) we have only to drop out the superfluous coordinate-difference;
if we wish to see by analogy what would be the fundamental natural law
for a four-dimensional Euclidean space, we have only to introduce under
the radical a fourth coordinate-difference for the fourth dimension.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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