Abstract
Accounts of both the special and the general theories are included in Einstein’s popular book entitled Relativity, which was translated from German into English by Robert W. Lawson and published by the Henry Holt Company in 1920. Herein, Einstein provides “an exact insight into the theory of Relativity to those readers who, from a general scientific and philosophical point of view, are interested in the theory, but who are not conversant with the mathematical apparatus of theoretical physics.” The readings in the remaining chapters of the present volume are from Part I of Relativity, which focuses on Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Einstein begins with insightful musings about the relationship between the laws of physics, Euclidean geometry and the concept of truth. He then proceeds to carefully examine how people typically assign space and time coordinates to a particular event. These seemingly mundane observations will lead to highly counterintuitive results when he later turns to measurements of the speed of light.
If the principle of relativity were not valid we should therefore expect that the direction of motion of the earth at any moment would enter into the laws of nature.
—Albert Einstein
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Notes
- 1.
A detailed account of Einstein’s life and work is provided in Rosenkranz, Z., The Einstein Scrapbook, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
- 2.
See Einstein’s essay entitled “Towards a World Government” in Einstein, A., The Einstein Reader, Citadel Press, 2006.
- 3.
This quotation is from Einstein’s preface to Relativity.
- 4.
It follows that a natural object is associated also with a straight line. Three points A, B and C on a rigid body thus lie in a straight line when, the points A and C being given, B is chosen such that the sum of the distances AB and BC is as short as possible. This incomplete suggestion will suffice for our present purpose.
- 5.
Here we have assumed that there is nothing left over, i.e. that the measurement gives a whole number. This difficulty is got over by the use of divided measuring-rods, the introduction of which does not demand any fundamentally new method.
- 6.
I have chosen this as being more familiar to the English reader than the “Potsdamer Platz, Berlin,” which is referred to in the original. (R. W. L.).
- 7.
It is not necessary here to investigate further the significance of the expression “coincidence in space.” This conception is sufficiently obvious to ensure that differences of opinion are scarcely likely to arise as to its applicability in practice.
- 8.
A refinement and modification of these views does not become necessary until we come to deal with the general theory of relativity, treated in the second part of this book.
- 9.
That is, a curve along which the body moves.
- 10.
These measurements many be performed using a Dual Range Force Sensor (Model DFS-BTA), Vernier, Beaverton, OR.
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Kuehn, K. (2015). The Principle of Relativity. In: A Student's Guide Through the Great Physics Texts. Undergraduate Lecture Notes in Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1366-4_29
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