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)
Euclid's and Newton's systems stand as first and second approximations
to that world. The Special Relativity Theory constitutes a correction
of Newton, presumably because it is a third approximation. We must
seek in it those features which we may most hopefully carry along,
into the still more general case.
Newton's system retained the geometry of Euclid. But Minkowski's
invariant expression tells us that Einstein has had to abandon this;
for in Euclidean geometry of four dimensions the invariant takes
the form:
$$\sqrt{(X-x)^2 + (Y-y)^2 + (Z-z)^2 + (T-t)^2}\,,$$
analogous to that of two and three dimensions. It is not the presence
of the constant $C$ in Minkowski's formula that counts; this is merely
an adjustment so that we may measure space in miles and time in the
unit that corresponds to a mile. It is the minus sign where Euclidean
geometry demands a plus that makes Minkowski's continuum non-Euclidean.
The editor has told us what this statement means. I think he has made
it clear that when we speak of the geometry of the four-dimensional
world, we must not read into this term the restrictions surrounding
the kind of geometry we are best acquainted with--that of the
three-dimensional Euclidean continuum. So I need only point out that
if we are to make a fourth (and we hope, final) approximation to the
reality, its geometry must preserve the generality attained by that
of the third step, if it goes no further.
EINSTEIN'S TIME-SPACE WORLD
Einstein accordingly examined the possible non-Euclidean geometries
of four dimensions, in search of one displaying fundamental
characteristics which, interpreted in terms of space-time, would
lead to the observed facts of gravitation. The mathematics of this
investigation is that part of his work which, we are told, but twelve
men can follow; so we may only outline his conclusions.
If we assume that in the neighborhood of matter the world of
space-time is non-Euclidean, and that its curvature or distortion or
non-Euclideanism is of a certain type already known to mathematicians;
that the curvature of this world in the neighborhood of matter
increases with the mass, and decreases as the distance from the matter
increases; and that every particle of matter that is not interfered
with travels through space-time in the most direct path possible in
that continuum; then the observed facts of gravitation are accounted
for as an inherent geometric property of this space-time world. We
usually say that the presence of matter distorts this world, and
that this distortion gives the track of particles through the region
affected its non-uniform character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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