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

About this eBook

Author

Bird, J. Malcolm (James Malcolm), 1886-1964

Title

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

Original Publication

United States: Scientific American Publishing Co., Munn & Co.,1921.

Credits

Produced by Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This book was produced from scanned images of public domain material from the Google Books project.)

Language

English

LoC Class

QC: Science: Physics

Subject

Relativity (Physics)

Category

Text

Project Gutenberg

eBook-No. 63372

Release Date

October 4, 2020

Copyright

Public domain in the USA.

Contents

1. 1.Untitled
2. 2.PREFACE
3. 3.Table of Contents
4. 4.Table of Contents
5. 5.THE EINSTEIN $5,000 PRIZE — The Donor and the Prize — The Judges — Three Thousand Words — The Competing Essays — Looking for the Winner — The Winner of the Prize
6. 6.THE WORLD—AND US — 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
7. 7.THE RELATIVITY OF UNIFORM MOTION — 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
8. 8.THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY — 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
9. 9.THAT PARALLEL POSTULATE — 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
10. 10.THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM — 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
11. 11.RELATIVITY — The Mechanical Principle of Relativity — The Special Principle of Relativity — The Four Dimensional Continuum — Gravitation and Acceleration — The General Principle of Relativity
12. 12.THE NEW CONCEPTS OF TIME AND SPACE — 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
13. 13.THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY — The Behavior of Light — Space and Time — The World of Reality — Accelerated Motion
14. 14.SPACE, TIME AND GRAVITATION — The External World and its Geometry — Gravitation and its Place in the Universe — Gravitation and Space-Time
15. 15.THE PRINCIPLE OF GENERAL RELATIVITY — Gravitation and Acceleration — Paths Through the World of Four Dimensions — The Universe of Space-Time
16. 16.FORCE VS. GEOMETRY — The Relativity of Uniform Motion — Universal Relativity — The Geometry of Gravitation
17. 17.AN INTRODUCTION TO RELATIVITY — The Electromagnetic Theory of Light — The Michelson-Morley Experiment — The Lorentz Transformation — The First Theory of Relativity — The Inclusion of Gravitation
18. 18.NEW CONCEPTS FOR OLD — The World-Frame — The World-Fabric — Einstein’s Results
19. 19.THE NEW WORLD — The World Geometry — The Genesis of the Theory — The Time Diagram
20. 20.THE QUEST OF THE ABSOLUTE — The Gravitational Hypothesis — The Special Relativity Theory
21. 21.THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF RELATIVITY
22. 22.THE PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RELATIVITY — The Special Theory and Its Surprising Consequences — The Generalization — The Tests
23. 23.EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY
24. 24.EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF GRAVITATION
25. 25.THE EQUIVALENCE HYPOTHESIS
26. 26.THE GENERAL THEORY
27. 27.Colophon — Availability — Metadata — Revision History — External References — Corrections

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