is therefore a uniquely determinate invariant for two neighbouring events (points in the four-dimensional continuum), provided that we use measuring rods that are equal to each other when brought together and superimposed, and clocks whose rates are the same when they are brought together. In this the physical assumption is essential that the relative lengths of two measuring rods and the relative rates of two clocks are independent, in principle, of their previous history. But this assumption is certainly warranted by experience; if it did not hold there could be no sharp spectral lines; for the single atoms of the same element certainly do not have the same history, and it would be absurd to suppose any relative difference in the structure of the single atoms due to their previous history if the mass and frequencies of the single atoms of the same element were always the same.
Space-time regions of finite extent are, in general, not Galilean, so that a gravitational field cannot be done away with by any choice of co-ordinates in a finite region. There is, therefore, no choice of co-ordinates for which the metrical relations of the special theory of relativity hold in a finite region. But the invariant
always exists for two neighbouring points (events) of the continuum. This invariant
may be expressed in arbitrary co-ordinates. If one observes that the local
may be expressed linearly in terms of the co-ordinate differentials
,