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
Dr. Albert Einstein , Originator of the Special and General Theories of Relativity
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
COMPILED AND EDITED, AND INTRODUCTORY MATTER SUPPLIED BY J. MALCOLM BIRD, Associate Editor, Scientific American
NEW YORK SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO., MUNN & CO. 1921
Copyright 1921 by Scientific American Publishing Company
All rights reserved
Great Britain copyright secured
J. Malcolm Bird
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PREFACE
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
The Donor and the Prize
The Judges
Three Thousand Words
The Competing Essays
Looking for the Winner
The Winner of the Prize
Getting Away from the Greek Ideas
Relativism and Reality
Laws of Nature
Concepts and Realities
The Concepts of Space and Time
The Reference Frame for Space
Time and the Coordinate System
The Choice of a Coordinate Frame
Who Is Moving?
Mechanical Relativity
The Search for the Absolute
The Ether and Absolute Motion
The Earth and the Ether
A Journey Upstream and Back
The Michelson-Morley Experiment
The Verdict
The “Contraction” Hypothesis
Taking the Bull by the Horns
Questions of Common Sense
Shifting the Mental Gears
Light and the Ether
The Measurement of Time and Space
The Problem of Communication
An Einsteinian Experiment
Who Is Right?
The Relativity of Time and Space
Relativity and Reality
Time and Space in a Single Package
Some Further Consequences
Assumption and Consequence
Relativity and the Layman
Physics vs. Metaphysics
Terms We Cannot Define
Laying the Foundation
The Rôle of Geometry
What May We Take for Granted?
And What Is It All About?
Euclid’s Geometry
Axioms Made to Order
Locating the Discrepancy
What the Postulate Really Does
The Geometry of Surfaces
Euclidean or Non-Euclidean
The Four-Dimensional World of Events
A Continuum of Points
The Continuum in General
Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Continua
Our World of Four Dimensions
The Curvature of Space-Time
The Question of Visualization
What It All Leads To
The Mechanical Principle of Relativity
The Special Principle of Relativity
The Four Dimensional Continuum
Gravitation and Acceleration
The General Principle of Relativity
A World of Points
The Four-Dimensional World of Events
Successive Steps Toward Generality
Gravitation and Acceleration
Einstein’s Time-Space World
The Layman’s Last Doubt
The Behavior of Light
Space and Time
The World of Reality
Accelerated Motion
The External World and its Geometry
Gravitation and its Place in the Universe
Gravitation and Space-Time
Gravitation and Acceleration
Paths Through the World of Four Dimensions
The Universe of Space-Time
The Relativity of Uniform Motion
Universal Relativity
The Geometry of Gravitation
The Electromagnetic Theory of Light
The Michelson-Morley Experiment
The Lorentz Transformation
The First Theory of Relativity
The Inclusion of Gravitation
The World-Frame
The World-Fabric
Einstein’s Results
The World Geometry
The Genesis of the Theory
The Time Diagram
The Gravitational Hypothesis
The Special Relativity Theory
The Special Theory and Its Surprising Consequences
The Generalization
The Tests
Colophon
Availability
Metadata
Revision History
External References
Corrections
