Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Document Type

Book

Publication Date

2005

Abstract

Non Sequiturs in Relativity Four in number at this point Dr. Smith of "Lost in Space" had a knack of easing out of binds that he'd gotten himself into. Dr. Einstein was a little like that. Einstein originally declared that the distortions of special relativity reflect real changes to the objects being remotely observed, then reconsidered. The first non sequitur is quoted here from Sachs:[1] In a lecture that Einstein gave to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in 1921, he said the following: "Geometry predicates nothing about relations of real things, but only geometry together with the purport of physical laws can do so... The idea of the measuring rod and the idea of the clock contained with it in the theory of relativity do not find their exact correspondence in the real world. It is also clear that the solid body and the clock do not in the conceptual edifice of physics play the part of irreducible elements, but that of composite structures, which may not play any independent part in theoretical physics." / Einstein then went on to say that, in spite of the foregoing comment, we should temporarily support the use of the length and time transformations as though they were physically real. Sachs then quite understandably objects to that "non sequitur" as he called it.

Einstein obviously, in 1921, had second thoughts about some of the things he had written in 1916 and earlier in connection with special relativity.

Publisher

Pima Community College, East Campus

ISSN

1-931233-24-1

Language (ISO)

English

Keywords

Physics, Relativity, Light Speed, Speed Barrier, Starflight

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

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