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)
Our three-dimensional existence often reduces, for all practical
purposes, to a two-dimensional one. The objects and the events of
a certain room may quite satisfactorily be defined by thinking
of them, not as located in space, but as lying in the floor of
the room. Mathematically the justification for this viewpoint
is got by saying that we have elected to consider a slice of our
three-dimensional world of the sort which we know as a plane. When we
consider this plane and the points in it, we find that we have taken
a cross-section of the three-dimensional world. A line in that world
is now reduced, for us, to a single point--the point where it cuts
our plane; a plane is reduced to a line--the line where it cuts our
plane; the three-dimensional world itself is reduced to our plane
itself. Everything three-dimensional falls down into its shadow in
our plane, losing in the process that one of the three dimensions
which is not present in our plane.
For simplicity's sake it is usual to take a cross-section of space
parallel to one of our coordinate axes. We think of our three
dimensions as extending in the directions of those axes; and it is
easier to take a horizontal or vertical section which shall simply
wipe out one of these dimensions than to take an oblique section which
shall wipe out a dimension that consists partly of our original length,
and partly of our original width, and partly of our original height.
If we have a four-dimensional manifold to begin with, we may equally
shake out one of the four dimensions, one of the four coordinates,
and consider the three-dimensional result of this process as a
cross-section of the original four-dimensional continuum. And where, in
cross-sectioning a three-dimensioned world, we have but three choices
of a coordinate to eliminate, in cross-sectioning a world of four
dimensions we have four choices. By dropping out either the $x$, or the
$y$, or the $z$, or the $t$, we get a three-dimensioned cross-section.
Now our accustomed three-dimensional space is strictly Euclidean. When
we cross-section it, we get a Euclidean plane no matter what the
direction in which we make the cut. Likewise the Euclidean plane is
wholly Euclidean, because when we cross-section it in any direction
whatever we get a Euclidean line. A cylindrical surface, on the other
hand, is neither wholly Euclidean nor wholly non-Euclidean in this
matter of cross-sectioning. If we take a section in one direction we
get a Euclidean line and if we take a section in the other direction
we get a circle (if the cylindrical surface be a circular one). And
of course if we take an oblique section of any sort, it is neither
line nor circle, but a compromise between the two--the significant
thing being that it is still not a Euclidean line.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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