Einstein, the searcher : $b his work explained from dialogues with EinsteinMoszkowski, Alexander
Philosophy
Einstein, the searcher : $b his work explained from dialogues with Einstein
Moszkowski, Alexander
Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955; Relativity (Physics)
This means that, if a stellar body moves, its size increases until it
reaches the spherical boundary of space, where it becomes infinitely
great, and, at the same moment, passes from plus infinity to minus
infinity, that is, it enters the universe from the opposite direction;
then, if it continues moving in its original direction (as it has been
doing all along), it gradually becomes smaller in size until, finally,
it reaches its original position and its original size. If we suppose
the body to be endowed with the power of sensation, it would not be able
to observe its own changes of size, since all its scale-measures would
be altered in the same proportion. This whole complex of phenomena would
still be taking place in an infinite world of space, but, according to
the General Theory of Relativity, the geometry that is valid in this
world would no longer be that of Euclid; it is replaced by a system of
laws that arise from physics as a geometric necessity. In this new
geometry, a circle described with unit radius is a little smaller than
it would be in Euclidean geometry, with the result that the greatest
conceivable circle in this world cannot assume an infinite size.
Thus we have to imagine that our solid bodies, say stars, arrive at a
point in their travels which we may term only "enormously distant." If
we call the directions right and left instead of positive and negative,
then the process reduces itself to this: the moving body reaches the
point, which is enormously distant on the right, and which is identical
with the point enormously distant on the left; this means that the body
never moves out of the space continuum of this world, but returns to its
initial point of departure even when it moves ever onward in what is
apparently a straight line. It moves in a "warped" space.
Einstein has succeeded in finding an approximate value for this
non-infinite universe, from the fact that there is a determinable
gravitational constant. In the constitution of the universe it denotes
the same for the mass-relationships of the earth as the gravitational
constant of the earth denotes for us, namely, the quantity from which we
can calculate the final velocity attained by a freely falling body
during a unit of time. He also assumes a probable average for the
density of distribution of matter in the universe, by supposing that it
is about the same as that of the Milky Way. On this basis Einstein has
arrived at the following result by calculation:
The whole universe has a diameter of 100 million light-years, in round
numbers. That amounts to about 700 trillion miles.
M.: Does this follow from the discussion you entered on just now?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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