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 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1921. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... What Einstein's Study Of Uniform Motion Tells Us About Time And Space And The Nature Of The External Reality By Various Contributors And The Editor HATEVER the explanation adopted for the "y negative result of the Michelson-Morley experiment, one thing stands out clearly: the attempt to isolate absolute motion has again failed.]* Einstein generalizes this with all the other and older negative results of similar sort into a negative deduction to the effect that no experiment is possible upon two systems which will determine that one of them is in motion and the other at rest.]121 He elevates the repeated failure to detect absolute motion through space into the principle that experiment will never reveal anything in the nature of absolute velocities. He postulates that all laws of nature can and should be enunciated in such forms that they are as true in these forms for one observer as for another, even though these observers with their frames of reference be in motion relative to one another.]264 There are various ways of stating the principle of the relativity of uniform motion which has been thus arrived at, and which forms the basis of the Special Theory of Einstein. If we care to emphasize the role of mathematics and the reference frame we may say that]* any coordinate system having a uniform rectilinear motion with respect to the bodies under observation may be interchangeably used with any other such system in describing their motions;]232 or that the unaccelerated motion of a system of reference cannot be detected by observations made on this system alone.]194 Or we can let this aspect of the matter go, and state the relativity postulate in a form more intelligible to the non-mathematician by simply insisting that it is impossible by any means whatev...