[1] Not all gravitational fields may be transformed away by a proper choice of coordinates. If this were so, the space, whose nature is independent of any choice of coordinates, would always be Euclidean.—Author. [↑]
[2] Thus when it it said that a body contracts or that a clock runs slow when it is put in motion no actual physical change is implied. The judgment of different observers—one at rest with respect to the body and one not—are different.—Author. [↑]
XVII
THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF RELATIVITY
The Immediate Contacts Between Einstein’s Theories and Current Physics and Astronomy
BY PROFESSOR WILLIAM H. PICKERING
HARVARD COLLEGE OBSERVATORY,
MANDEVILLE, JAMAICA
The Theory of Relativity will be treated first from the physical side, leaving the three astronomical tests to which it has been put to be discussed later. There is one astronomical fact however that must be mentioned in this connection, and this is the discovery of the aberration of light by Bradley in 1726. It is found that every star in the heavens apparently describes a small annual ellipse, whose major axis is 41″ in length. This Bradley showed to be due to a combination of the velocity of the earth in its orbit, and the velocity of light; and it is so explained in all the elementary text-books on astronomy. It implies a stationary ether through which the earth is moving. The importance of this statement will appear presently.
The subject is usually illustrated by supposing a man to go out in a rainstorm carrying a vertical tube. If the rain is falling vertically, and the man stands still, the sides of the tube will not be wet, save by an occasional drop, but if the tube is moved, it must then be inclined forward in order to keep it dry. The angle of inclination, which corresponds to aberration, will depend on the relative velocity of the tube, corresponding to the earth, and the rain drops which correspond to the waves of light.
If three lines are dropped upon a point in space, each line being perpendicular to the plane containing the other two, we have what is known as a system of coordinates. Einstein’s original theory of relativity, which he now designates as the “special theory,” depends on two principles. The first is that “Every law of nature which holds good with respect to a coordinate system K must also hold good for any other system K′, provided that K and K′ are in uniform movement of translation.” The second principle is that “Light in a vacuum has a definite and constant velocity, independent of the velocity of its source.”