Download the Full Version of the Ebook with Added Features ebookname.

com

A Brief History of Heresy First Edition G. R.

Evans

https://ebookname.com/product/a-brief-history-of-heresy-
first-edition-g-r-evans/

OR CLICK HERE

DOWLOAD NOW

Download more ebook instantly today at https://ebookname.com

Instant digital products (PDF, ePub, MOBI) available
Download now and explore formats that suit you...

A Brief History of Neoliberalism First Edition David

Harvey

https://ebookname.com/product/a-brief-history-of-neoliberalism-first-
edition-david-harvey/

ebookname.com

Scientific Method in Brief First Edition Hugh G. Gauch

https://ebookname.com/product/scientific-method-in-brief-first-
edition-hugh-g-gauch/

ebookname.com

A Brief History of Christianity Blackwell Brief Histories

of Religion 1st Edition Carter Lindberg

https://ebookname.com/product/a-brief-history-of-christianity-
blackwell-brief-histories-of-religion-1st-edition-carter-lindberg/

ebookname.com

The Ecology of the Barí Rainforest Horticulturalists of

South America 1st Edition Stephen Beckerman

https://ebookname.com/product/the-ecology-of-the-bari-rainforest-
horticulturalists-of-south-america-1st-edition-stephen-beckerman/

ebookname.com
Practical Gynaecological Ultrasound 2nd Edition Jane Bates
Mphil Dmu Dcrr

https://ebookname.com/product/practical-gynaecological-ultrasound-2nd-
edition-jane-bates-mphil-dmu-dcrr/

ebookname.com

Assembly Language for Intel based Computers 4th Edition

Kip R. Irvine

https://ebookname.com/product/assembly-language-for-intel-based-
computers-4th-edition-kip-r-irvine/

ebookname.com

Merleau Ponty and Nishida Artistic Expression as Motor

Perceptual Faith Adam Loughnane

https://ebookname.com/product/merleau-ponty-and-nishida-artistic-
expression-as-motor-perceptual-faith-adam-loughnane/

ebookname.com

Interlinking of Rivers in India Issues and Concerns 1st

Edition M. Monirul Qader Mirza

https://ebookname.com/product/interlinking-of-rivers-in-india-issues-
and-concerns-1st-edition-m-monirul-qader-mirza/

ebookname.com

Off road Racing Sue Mead

https://ebookname.com/product/off-road-racing-sue-mead/

ebookname.com
Applied Technologies in Pulmonary Medicine 1st Edition
A.M.Esquinas

https://ebookname.com/product/applied-technologies-in-pulmonary-
medicine-1st-edition-a-m-esquinas/

ebookname.com
A Brief History of
Heresy
BLACKWELL BRIEF HISTORIES OF RELIGION SERIES
This series offers brief, accessible and lively accounts of key
topics within theology and religion. Each volume presents
both academic and general readers with a selected history
of topics which have had a profound effect on religious and
cultural life. The word ‘history’ is, therefore, understood in
its broadest cultural and social sense. The volumes are based
on serious scholarship but they are written engagingly and
in terms readily understood by general readers.

Published
Alister E. McGrath – A Brief History of Heaven
G. R. Evans – A Brief History of Heresy

Forthcoming
Carter Lindberg – A Brief History of Love
Douglas Davies – A Brief History of Death
Dana Robert – A Brief History of Mission
Tamara Sonn – A Brief History of Islam
A Brief History of
Heresy

G. R. EVANS
© 2003 by G. R. Evans
350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5018, USA
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK
550 Swanston Street, Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia
Kurfürstendamm 57, 10707 Berlin, Germany
The right of G. R. Evans to be identified as the Author of this
Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright,
Designs, and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by
the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the
prior permission of the publisher.
First published 2003 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Evans, G. R. (Gillian Rosemary)
A brief history of heresy / G. R. Evans.
p. cm. – (Blackwell brief histories of religion)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-631-23525-6 (alk. paper) –
ISBN 0-631-23526-4 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Heresy–History. I. Title. II. Series.
BT1315.3 .E93 2002
273–dc21 2002007334
A catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.
Set in 9.5/12pt Meridian
by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong
Printed and bound in the United Kingdom
by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall

For further information on

Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com
Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Preface x

1 The Importance of Being United 1

Forming Consensus 5
The Papacy 10
The Bible in the Hands of Heretics 13
Areas Where Disagreement May be Allowed 20

2 The Boundaries of Orthodoxy: Faith 23

The Apostles’ Creed 24
The Nicene Creed 29
Catechesis 34
Misdirected Worship and Taking the Name of
God in Vain 38
Does the Faith ‘Develop’ Through History? 41
The Content of the Creeds and the Question of
Orthodoxy 45

3 The Boundaries of Orthodoxy: Order 47

‘Disorder’ at the Wild Fringes 47
 Orderliness 53
Ministry and Order 55
The Rigorist Dispute 57
Schismatics 59
Diaspora 61
Orthopraxis 62

4 Classifying Heresies 65
What Could be Imported from Ancient
Philosophy? 66
Incarnation and Christology 67
The Augustinian Trio 70
The Easter Controversy 71
The Doctrine of Transubstantiation 72
1054 and the Schism of East and West 73
From Sect to ‘Confessional Identity’ 76
The Power of a Name 80
Categories of Unbelief 83
Pinning Accusations to Suspected Heretics 86
The Creation of a Critical Literature 88

5 Heresy and Social Challenge 90

Popular Heresy: The Anti-establishment
Dissidents Speak up for Themselves 93
The Road to Dissent 98
The Waldensians 99
John Wyclif and the Lollard Movement 106
Jan Hus 110
The Hussite ‘Movement’ 117
Social Consequences After the Middle Ages 119

6 Good and Evil 123

The Mediaeval Dualists 126

vi Contents
7 Dealing with Heresy 134
University Sermons 136
The Preaching of the Heretics Themselves 138
Crusade 141
Inquisition 142
The Change in the Balance of Power 149
Living with Difference 151

Conclusion 157

Notes 166

Further reading 180

Index 186

Contents vii
List of Illustrations

Picture research by Charlotte Morris.

Plate 1 Communion of the Apostles, fresco by

Fra Angelico (1387–1455). Museo di
San Marco, Florence/photo SCALA. 25
Plate 2 St Augustine teaching in Rome, fresco
by Benozzo Gozzoli, 1464–5. Sant’Agostino,
San Gimignano/photo. SCALA. 36
Plate 3 John Henry Newman, portrait bust by
Thomas Woolner, 1867. By permission of
the Warden and Fellows of Keble College,
Oxford. 43
Plate 4 Waldensian community of Dormillouse in
the French Alps, engraving from William
Beattie, The Waldenses, or Protestant valleys of
Piedmont, Dauphiny and the Ban de la Roche
(London, 1838). British Library, London. 100
Plate 5 John Wycliffe. Private collection. 107
Plate 6 Jan Hus, woodcut portrait, Photo AKG
London. 111
Plate 7 William Tyndale being burnt at the stake,
woodcut from Foxes’s Acts and Monuments
of Martyrs, 1684. Private collection. 143
Plate 8 Galileo before the Inquisition, Rome, 1633,
painting by J. N. R. Fleury. Musée du
Louvre, Paris/photo AKG London,
Erich Lessing. 144

List of Illustrations ix
Preface

The extreme fundamentalism which has manifested itself

so disquietingly in other religions in recent years with
devastating global effect, has had its counterparts through-
out Christian history, in religious wars and the persecution
of individuals and groups of dissidents. This is a book about
‘heresy’ in Christianity, where the issues are distinctive
because it is of the essence of Christianity that there be
agreement in a common faith. Or so everyone thought for
many centuries. The modern opening up of that funda-
mental assumption to active questioning makes a book like
this topical, and perhaps a useful aid to those engaged in
inter-faith and ecumenical conversations as well as those
conscious of living in a predominantly secular society where
Christians are one of a number of ‘faith communities’.
The Christian presumption has always been that life is
lived in search of salvation. Some have thought that should
be an active search, involving a positive effort; others have
seen it as a gift of grace which cannot be deserved by
trying. But both viewpoints take true faith to be central.
The Christian who is striving to be good needs to be clear
what ‘being good’ means. The Christian who simply trusts
in Christ, as an act of ‘justifying faith’, must still have the
true faith.
What is ‘required’, then? Is the test what the individual
Christian believes? Is the test ‘a justifying faith in Christ’, not
in the sense of the content of what is believed but in the
sense of ‘trust in him’? That was what Luther argued, pointing
out that even devils have a knowledge of Christ. Is personal
faith enough, or must the individual be a member of a ‘com-
munity of faith’? Or are neither necessary if God can act
directly (by ‘grace’), choosing to ‘save’ some individuals to
be with him in eternity, perhaps even without regard to
their beliefs or their membership of the visible Church?
The extreme fear of anything which seemed to undermine
the unity and integrity of the faith manifested throughout
most of the events described in this book is therefore a
recognition of the immense significance of what is at stake.
The unity brought into question by the challenge of heresy
has not only been of ‘faith in one Christ’, involving a particu-
lar set of ‘beliefs about him’. It has also involved questions
of ‘order’. It has frequently been asserted that there is ‘no
salvation outside the Church’: nulla salus extra ecclesiam. Yet
order in the Church is something much deeper than struc-
tural unity. When the Church is visibly divided, with one
worshipping community set against another, it is suffering a
breakdown of unity in its ‘order’ just as much as when there
is an ‘invisible’ loss of the sense of community and common
purpose. We shall see throughout this book the two threads
of heresy (where some persist in choosing to believe differ-
ently from others) and schism (where there is division on a
point of order), intertwined at almost every point.
When Augustine of Hippo (354–430) said that not every
error is heresy, he was saying something almost universally

Preface xi
agreed in Christian history.1 The Spanish theologian Isidore
of Seville (c.560–636) explains that the Greek haeresis carries
the sense of making a choice. Heretics are those who ‘hold-
ing perverse dogma, draw apart from the Church of their own
free will’.2 He includes similar themes in his On Heresies,
though it covers fewer heresies than the Etymologies and dis-
cusses them more briefly.3 In On Heresies, Isidore stresses that
heretics are those who not only think wrongly, but persist
with determined wickedness (pertinaci pravitate) in thinking
wrongly.4 It is important that they are exercising free choice
when they opt for the wrong opinions; their fault is moral
as well as intellectual. By contrast, an orthodoxus is ‘a man
upright in faith’ who is also living a good Christian life.5
Isidore tried to explain the difference between the Church
and the ‘sects’. He explains that it is a mark of the true
Church that it is not, ‘like the conventicles of the heretics’,
in huddles in different regions, but spread throughout all
the world,6 so that the same Church is to be found in every
place. ‘Huddles’ are exactly what we shall see, in succeeding
centuries, as groups of ‘outlaws’ from the faith meet secretly
in one another’s houses.
There is no heresy which is not attacked by other heretics,
says Bede (c.673–735).7 Historically, as well as theologically,
this has proved to be true. For once a group has set itself
apart, or been officially cast off by the Church, it has often
fragmented in its turn. Yet the fragments fall into patterns.
These patterns and the favourite themes of heresy which
we shall see repeating in the following pages give this book
its natural shape.
Clusters of heretical beliefs aggregate in every century, or
it seems to contemporaries that they do. The controversial
Bohemian Jan Hus in the early fifteenth century tried to
give the picture in outline.

xii Preface
 There are three kinds of heresy according to the most
famous doctors: namely, simony, blasphemy, and apostasy
which, though not in reality distinguishable as opposites,
yet are nevertheless distinguished as to cause. Apostasy con-
sists generally . . . of man’s deviation from the religion of
God; blasphemy is . . . man’s calumny of God’s power; but
simony consists, according to reason, in man’s destroying
altogether God’s ordinances.8

For all these reasons it is not an easy task to give a tidy

account now of the ways in which heretical opinions clus-
tered together in reality. The considerable surviving literature
is mostly the work of those trying to change the minds of
heretics. They had their own agendas about the ways in
which they presented the ideas they were challenging. The
‘heretics’ and ‘schismatics’ themselves would not necessarily
recognize themselves in the descriptions of their critics.
There has been great nervousness about ‘novelty’ through-
out the history of the Church. This has been taken to an
extreme in the Orthodox Churches of the ‘Eastern’ half of
the ancient Roman Empire, which became divided from the
Western Church in stages, first (in the case of the Oriental
Orthodox Churches) at the Council of Chalcedon in 451
and then (in the case of the Orthodox Church) with the
schism which began in 1054, and which still divides the
Orthodox Churches from the rest of the Christian world.
The division was originally as much about politics as the-
ology, but central to it was the accusation that the West had
been ‘adding things’ to the Creed.
The Orthodox held with determination to the positions
articulated in the first few centuries and they resisted any
departure from, or development of, what could be said
then, on the grounds that if it was new it could not be
authentically part of the true faith. By the iconoclast era of

Preface xiii
the seventh to ninth century, the acts of their Councils
tended to follow a standard format, reflecting the proce-
dure which was used at the Council itself in the actual
discussion. This was the time when one party wanted to
destroy all the images of saints which were so much rever-
enced by ordinary people. Accounts of significant discussions
of theological topics were preserved with care and recopied,
even put into florilegia or collections of extracts, so that
they could be referred to as disputes continued.9 The Church
in this part of the world was trying hard to ensure that it
was faithful to the decisions of the Church of earlier times.
Even if it has not been such a central preoccupation
there, in the West, too, there has been a consistent associa-
tion of ‘new’ with ‘wrong’. In the four short books he wrote
against the heretics at the end of the twelfth century, Alan
of Lille identifies ‘new’ heresies among the ‘old heresies’
which are themselves still unacceptable because of their
novelty, even if they are familiar. Among the ‘very new’ or
‘newest’ heresies the heretics of his own day are, he says,
disporting themselves like drunken men. They have gone
beyond their predecessors in that in former times the heretics
erred merely in attempting to solve the deep problems of
theology with the aid of human reason; these new heretics
‘are restrained by neither human nor divine reason’; they
devise monstrosities. Alan of Lille tries to get things back
under control by using the arguments already devised
against the former heresies when they were ‘new’, for they
have acquired a certain established character over against
these even newer departures from the true faith.10
The accusation of novelty has come from both ‘sides’. It
has not only been made by the ‘official’ Church against dis-
sidents. Two centuries later, at the end of the fourteenth
century, the dissident John Wyclif (c.1329–84) was accusing

xiv Preface
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The A B C of
Relativity
 This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United
States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away
or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you
are not located in the United States, you will have to check the
laws of the country where you are located before using this
eBook.

Title: The A B C of Relativity

Author: Bertrand Russell

Release date: January 4, 2022 [eBook #67104]

Language: English

Original publication: United States: Harper & Brothers

Credits: Tim Lindell and the Online Distributed Proofreading

Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from images made available by the
HathiTrust Digital Library.)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE A B C OF

RELATIVITY ***
 HARPER’S MODERN SCIENCE
SERIES

THE A B C OF RELATIVITY

BY

BERTRAND RUSSELL
AUTHOR OF
“THE PRINCIPLES OF MATHEMATICS”
“PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM”
AND “WHY MEN FIGHT”

PUBLISHERS

HARPER & BROTHERS

NEW YORK AND LONDON

THE A B C OF RELATIVITY
Copyright, 1925, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
 Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. TOUCH AND SIGHT: THE EARTH AND THE HEAVENS 1
II. WHAT HAPPENS AND WHAT IS OBSERVED 14
III. THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT 28
IV. CLOCKS AND FOOT RULES 43
V. SPACE-TIME 58
VI. THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY 71
VII. INTERVALS IN SPACE-TIME 91
VIII. EINSTEIN’S LAW OF GRAVITATION 111
IX. PROOFS OF EINSTEIN’S LAW OF GRAVITATION 131
X. MASS, MOMENTUM, ENERGY AND ACTION 144
XI. IS THE UNIVERSE FINITE? 163
XII. CONVENTIONS AND NATURAL LAWS 177
XIII. THE ABOLITION OF “FORCE” 192
XIV. WHAT IS MATTER? 206
XV. PHILOSOPHICAL CONSEQUENCES 219
THE A B C OF RELATIVITY
 CHAPTER ONE:
TOUCH AND SIGHT:
THE EARTH AND THE HEAVENS
E
verybody knows that Einstein has done something astonishing,
but very few people know exactly what it is that he has done. It
is generally recognized that he has revolutionized our conception of
the physical world, but his new conceptions are wrapped up in
mathematical technicalities. It is true that there are innumerable
popular accounts of the theory of relativity, but they generally cease
to be intelligible just at the point where they begin to say something
important. The authors are hardly to blame for this. Many of the new
ideas can be expressed in non-mathematical language, but they are
none the less difficult on that account. What is demanded is a
change in our imaginative picture of the world—a picture which has
been handed down from remote, perhaps pre-human, ancestors,
and has been learned by each one of us in early childhood. A change
in our imagination is always difficult, especially when we are no
longer young. The same sort of change was demanded by
Copernicus, when he taught that the earth is not stationary and the
heavens do not revolve about it once a day. To us now there is no
difficulty in this idea, because we learned it before our mental habits
had become fixed. Einstein’s ideas, similarly, will seem easy to a
generation which has grown up with them; but for our generation a
certain effort of imaginative reconstruction is unavoidable.
In exploring the surface of the earth, we make use of all our
senses, more particularly of the senses of touch and sight. In
measuring lengths, parts of the human body are employed in pre-
scientific ages: a “foot,” a “cubit,” a “span” are defined in this way.
For longer distances, we think of the time it takes to walk from one
place to another. We gradually learn to judge distances roughly by
the eye, but we rely upon touch for accuracy. Moreover it is touch
that gives us our sense of “reality.” Some things cannot be touched:
rainbows, reflections in looking-glasses, and so on. These things
puzzle children, whose metaphysical speculations are arrested by the
information that what is in the looking glass is not “real.” Macbeth’s
dagger was unreal because it was not “sensible to feeling as to
sight.” Not only our geometry and physics, but our whole conception
of what exists outside us, is based upon the sense of touch. We
carry this even into our metaphors: a good speech is “solid,“ a bad
speech is “gas,” because we feel that a gas is not quite “real.”
In studying the heavens, we are debarred from all senses except
sight. We cannot touch the sun, or travel to it; we cannot walk round
the moon, or apply a foot rule to the Pleiades. Nevertheless,
astronomers have unhesitatingly applied the geometry and physics
which they found serviceable on the surface of the earth, and which
they had based upon touch and travel. In doing so, they brought
down trouble on their heads, which it has been left for Einstein to
clear up. It has turned out that much of what we learned from the
sense of touch was unscientific prejudice, which must be rejected if
we are to have a true picture of the world.
An illustration may help us to understand how much is impossible
to the astronomer as compared to the man who is interested in
things on the surface of the earth. Let us suppose that a drug is
administered to you which makes you temporarily unconscious, and
that when you wake you have lost your memory but not your
reasoning powers. Let us suppose further that while you were
unconscious you were carried into a balloon, which, when you come
to, is sailing with the wind in a dark night—the night of the fifth of
November if you are in England, or of the fourth of July if you are in
America. You can see fireworks which are being sent off from the
ground, from trains, and from aeroplanes traveling in all directions,
but you cannot see the ground or the trains or the aeroplanes be
cause of the darkness. What sort of picture of the world will you
form? You will think that nothing is permanent: there are only brief
flashes of light, which, during their short existence, travel through
the void in the most various and bizarre curves. You cannot touch
these flashes of light, you can only see them. Obviously your
geometry and your physics and your metaphysics will be quite
different from those of ordinary mortals. If an ordinary mortal is with
you in the balloon, you will find his speech unintelligible. But if
Einstein is with you, you will understand him more easily than the
ordinary mortal would, because you will be free from a host of
preconceptions which prevent most people from understanding him.
The theory of relativity depends, to a considerable extent, upon
getting rid of notions which are useful in ordinary life but not to our
drugged balloonist. Circumstances on the surface of the earth, for
various more or less accidental reasons, suggest conceptions which
turn out to be inaccurate, although they have come to seem like
necessities of thought. The most important of these circumstances is
that most objects on the earth’s surface are fairly persistent and
nearly stationary from a terrestrial point of view. If this were not the
case, the idea of going a journey would not seem so definite as it
does. If you want to travel from King’s Cross to Edinburgh, you know
that you will find King’s Cross where it always has been, that the
railway line will take the course that it did when you last made the
journey, and that Waverley Station in Edinburgh will not have walked
up to the Castle. You therefore say and think that you have traveled
to Edinburgh, not that Edinburgh has traveled to you, though the
latter statement would be just as accurate. The success of this
common sense point of view depends upon a number of things
which are really of the nature of luck. Suppose all the houses in
London were perpetually moving about, like a swarm of bees;
suppose railways moved and changed their shapes like avalanches;
and finally suppose that material objects were perpetually being
formed and dissolved like clouds. There is nothing impossible in
these suppositions: something like them must have been verified
when the earth was hotter than it is now. But obviously what we call
a journey to Edinburgh would have no meaning in such a world. You
would begin, no doubt, by asking the taxi-driver: “Where is King’s
Cross this morning?“ At the station you would have to ask a similar
question about Edinburgh, but the booking-office clerk would reply:
“What part of Edinburgh do you mean, Sir? Prince’s Street has gone
to Glasgow, the Castle has moved up into the Highlands, and
Waverley Station is under water in the middle of the Firth of Forth.”
And on the journey the stations would not be staying quiet, but
some would be travelling north, some south, some east or west,
perhaps much faster than the train. Under these conditions you
could not say where you were at any moment. Indeed the whole
notion that one is always in some definite “place” is due to the
fortunate immovability of most of the large objects on the earth’s
surface. The idea of “place” is only a rough practical approximation:
there is nothing logically necessary about it, and it cannot be made
precise.
If we were not much larger than an electron, we should not have
this impression of stability, which is only due to the grossness of our
senses. King’s Cross, which to us looks solid, would be too vast to be
conceived except by a few eccentric mathematicians. The bits of it
that we could see would consist of little tiny points of matter, never
coming into contact with each other, but perpetually whizzing round
each other in an inconceivably rapid ballet-dance. The world of our
experience would be quite as mad as the one in which the different
parts of Edinburgh go for walks in different directions. If—to take the
opposite extreme—you were as large as the sun and lived as long,
with a corresponding slowness of perception, you would again find a
higgledy-piggledy universe without permanence—stars and planets
would come and go like morning mists, and nothing would remain in
a fixed position relatively to anything else. The notion of comparative
stability which forms part of our ordinary outlook is thus due to the
fact that we are about the size we are, and live on a planet of which
the surface is no longer very hot. If this were not the case, we
should not find pre-relativity physics intellectually satisfying. Indeed,
we should never have invented such theories. We should have had
to arrive at relativity physics at one bound, or remain ignorant of
scientific laws. It is fortunate for us that we were not faced with this
alternative, since it is almost inconceivable that one man could have
done the work of Euclid, Galileo, Newton, and Einstein. Yet without
such an incredible genius physics could hardly have been discovered
in a world where the universal flux was obvious to non-scientific
observation.
In astronomy, although the sun, moon, and stars continue to
exist year after year, yet in other respects the world we have to deal
with is very different from that of everyday life. As already observed,
we depend exclusively on sight: the heavenly bodies cannot be
touched, heard, smelt or tasted. Everything in the heavens is moving
relatively to everything else. The earth is going round the sun, the
sun is moving, very much faster than an express train, towards a
point in the constellation “Hercules,” the “fixed” stars are scurrying
hither and thither like a lot of frightened hens. There are no well-
marked places in the sky, like King’s Cross and Edinburgh. When you
travel from place to place on the earth, you say the train moves and
not the stations, because the stations preserve their topographical
relations to each other and the surrounding country. But in
astronomy it is arbitrary which you call the train and which the
station: the question is to be decided purely by convenience and as
a matter of convention.
In this respect, it is interesting to contrast Einstein and
Copernicus. Before Copernicus, people thought that the earth stood
still and the heavens revolved about it once a day. Copernicus taught
that “really” the earth rotates once a day, and the daily revolution of
sun and stars is only “apparent.” Galileo and Newton endorsed this
view, and many things were thought to prove it—for example, the
flattening of the earth at the poles, and the fact that bodies are
heavier there than at the equator. But in the modern theory the
question between Copernicus and his predecessors is merely one of
convenience; all motion is relative, and there is no difference
between the two statements: “the earth rotates once a day” and
“the heavens revolve about the earth once a day.” The two mean
exactly the same thing, just as it means the same thing if I say that
a certain length is six feet or two yards. Astronomy is easier if we
take the sun as fixed than if we take the earth, just as accounts are
easier in a decimal coinage. But to say more for Copernicus is to
assume absolute motion, which is a fiction. All motion is relative, and
it is a mere convention to take one body as at rest. All such
conventions are equally legitimate, though not all are equally
convenient.
There is another matter of great importance, in which astronomy
differs from terrestrial physics because of its exclusive dependence
upon sight. Both popular thought and old-fashioned physics used the
notion of “force,” which seemed intelligible because it was associated
with familiar sensations. When we are walking, we have sensations
connected with our muscles which we do not have when we are
sitting still. In the days before mechanical traction, although people
could travel by sitting in their carriages, they could see the horses
exerting themselves and evidently putting out “force” in the same
way as human beings do. Everybody knew from experience what it
is to push or pull, or to be pushed or pulled. These very familiar
facts made “force” seem a natural basis for dynamics. But Newton’s
law of gravitation introduced a difficulty. The force between two
billiard balls appeared intelligible, because we know what it feels like
to bump into another person; but the force between the earth and
the sun, which are ninety-three million miles apart, was mysterious.
Newton himself regarded this “action at a distance” as impossible,
and believed that there was some hitherto undiscovered mechanism
by which the sun’s influence was transmitted to the planets.
However, no such mechanism was discovered, and gravitation
remained a puzzle. The fact is that the whole conception of “force” is
a mistake. The sun does not exert any force on the planets; in
Einstein’s law of gravitation, the planet only pays attention to what it
finds in its own neighborhood. The way in which this works will be
explained in a later chapter; for the present we are only concerned
with the necessity of abandoning the notion of “force,” which was
due to misleading conceptions derived from the sense of touch.
As physics has advanced, it has appeared more and more that
sight is less misleading than touch as a source of fundamental
notions about matter. The apparent simplicity in the collision of
billiard balls is quite illusory. As a matter of fact, the two billiard balls
never touch at all; what really happens is inconceivably complicated,
but is more analogous to what happens when a comet penetrates
the solar system and goes away again than to what common sense
supposes to happen.
Most of what we have said hitherto was already recognized by
physicists before Einstein invented the theory of relativity. “Force”
was known to be merely a mathematical fiction, and it was generally
held that motion is a merely relative phenomenon—that is to say,
when two bodies are changing their relative position, we cannot say
that one is moving while the other is at rest, since the occurrence is
merely a change in their relation to each other. But a great labor was
required in order to bring the actual procedure of physics into
harmony with these new convictions. Newton believed in force and
in absolute space and time; he embodied these beliefs in his
technical methods, and his methods remained those of later
physicists. Einstein invented a new technique, free from Newton’s
assumptions. But in order to do so he had to change fundamentally
the old ideas of space and time, which had been unchallenged from
time immemorial. This is what makes both the difficulty and the
interest of his theory. But before explaining it there are some
preliminaries which are indispensable. These will occupy the next
two chapters.
 CHAPTER II:
WHAT HAPPENS AND
WHAT IS OBSERVED

A
certain type of superior person is fond of asserting that
“everything is relative.” This is, of course, nonsense, because, if
everything were relative, there would be nothing for it to be relative
to. However, without falling into metaphysical absurdities it is
possible to maintain that everything in the physical world is relative
to an observer. This view, true or not, is not that adopted by the
“theory of relativity.” Perhaps the name is unfortunate; certainly it
has led philosophers and uneducated people into confusions. They
imagine that the new theory proves everything in the physical world
to be relative, whereas, on the contrary, it is wholly concerned to
exclude what is relative and arrive at a statement of physical laws
that shall in no way depend upon the circumstances of the observer.
It is true that these circumstances have been found to have more
effect upon what appears to the observer than they were formerly
thought to have, but at the same time Einstein showed how to
discount this effect completely. This was the source of almost
everything that is surprising in his theory.
When two observers perceive what is regarded as one
occurrence, there are certain similarities, and also certain
differences, between their perceptions. The differences are obscured
by the requirements of daily life, because from a business point of
view they are as a rule unimportant. But both psychology and
physics, from their different angles, are compelled to emphasize the
respects in which one man’s perception of a given occurrence differs
from another man’s. Some of these differences are due to
differences in the brains or minds of the observers, some to
differences in their sense organs, some to differences of physical
situation: these three kinds may be called respectively psychological,
physiological, and physical. A remark made in a language we know
will be heard, whereas an equally loud remark in an unknown
language may pass entirely unnoticed. Of two men in the Alps, one
will perceive the beauty of the scenery while the other will notice the
waterfalls with a view to obtaining power from them. Such
differences are psychological. The difference between a long-sighted
and a short-sighted man, or between a deaf man and a man who
hears well, are physiological. Neither of these kinds concerns us, and
I have mentioned them only in order to exclude them. The kind that
concerns us is the purely physical kind. Physical differences between
two observers will be preserved when the observers are replaced by
cameras or phonographs, and can be reproduced on the movies or
the gramophone. If two men both listen to a third man speaking,
and one of them is nearer to the speaker than the other is, the
nearer one will hear louder and slightly earlier sounds than are
heard by the other. If two men both watch a tree falling, they see it
from different angles. Both these differences would be shown
equally by recording instruments: they are in no way due to
idiosyncrasies in the observers, but are part of the ordinary course of
physical nature as we experience it.
The physicist, like the plain man, believes that his perceptions
give him knowledge about what is really occurring in the physical
world, and not only about his private experiences. Professionally, he
regards the physical world as “real,” not merely as something which
human beings dream. An eclipse of the sun, for instance, can be
observed by any person who is suitably situated, and is also
observed by the photographic plates that are exposed for the
purpose. The physicist is persuaded that something has really
happened over and above the experiences of those who have looked
at the sun or at photographs of it. I have emphasized this point,
which might seem a trifle obvious, because some people imagine
that Einstein has made a difference in this respect. In fact he has
made none.
 But if the physicist is justified in this belief that a number of
people can observe the “same” physical occurrence, then clearly the
physicist must be concerned with those features which the
occurrence has in common for all observers, for the others cannot
be regarded as belonging to the occurrence itself. At least, the
physicist must confine himself to the features which are common to
all “equally good” observers. The observer who uses a microscope or
a telescope is preferred to one who does not, because he sees all
that the latter sees and more too. A sensitive photographic plate
may “see” still more, and is then preferred to any eye. But such
things as differences of perspective, or differences of apparent size
due to difference of distance, are obviously not attributable to the
object; they belong solely to the point of view of the spectator.
Common sense eliminates these in judging of objects; physics has to
carry the same process much further, but the principle is the same.
I want to make it clear that I am not concerned with anything
that can be called inaccuracy. I am concerned with genuine physical
differences between occurrences each of which is a correct record of
a certain event, from its own point of view. When a man fires a gun,
people who are not quite close to him see the flash before they hear
the report. This is not due to any defect in their senses, but to the
fact that sound travels more slowly than light. Light travels so fast
that, from the point of view of phenomena on the surface of the
earth, it may be regarded as instantaneous. Anything that we can
see on the earth happens practically at the moment when we see it.
In a second, light travels 300,000 kilometers (about 186,000 miles).
It travels from the sun to the earth in about eight minutes, and from
the stars to us in anything from three to a thousand years. But of
course we cannot place a clock in the sun, and send out a flash of
light from it at 12 noon, Greenwich Mean Time, and have it received
at Greenwich at 12.08 p.m. Our methods of estimating the speed of
light have to be more or less indirect. The only direct method would
be that which we apply to sound when we use an echo. We could
send a flash to a mirror, and observe how long it took for the
reflection to reach us; this would give the time of the double journey
to the mirror and back. On the earth, however, the time would be so
short that a great deal of theoretical physics has to be utilized if this
method is to be employed—more even than is required for the
employment of astronomical data.
The problem of allowing for the spectator’s point of view, we may
be told, is one of which physics has at all times been fully aware;
indeed it has dominated astronomy ever since the time of
Copernicus. This is true. But principles are often acknowledged long
before their full consequences are drawn. Much of traditional physics
is incompatible with the principle, in spite of the fact that it was
acknowledged theoretically by all physicists.
There existed a set of rules which caused uneasiness to the
philosophically minded, but were accepted by physicists because
they worked in practice. Locke had distinguished “secondary”
qualities—colors, noises, tastes, smells, etc.—as subjective, while
allowing “primary” qualities—shapes and positions and sizes—to be
genuine properties of physical objects. The physicist’s rules were
such as would follow from this doctrine. Colors and noises were
allowed to be subjective, but due to waves proceeding with a
definite velocity—that of light or sound as the case may be—from
their source to the eye or ear of the percipient. Apparent shapes
vary according to the laws of perspective, but these laws are simple
and make it easy to infer the “real” shapes from several visual
apparent shapes; moreover, the “real” shapes can be ascertained by
touch in the case of bodies in our neighborhood. The objective time
of a physical occurrence can be inferred from the time when we
perceive it by allowing for the velocity of transmission—of light or
sound or nerve currents according to circumstances. This was the
view adopted by physicists in practice, whatever qualms they may
have had in unprofessional moments.
This view worked well enough until physicists became concerned
with much greater velocities than those that are common on the
surface of the earth. An express train travels about a mile in a
minute; the planets travel a few miles in a second. Comets, when
they are near the sun, travel much faster, and behave somewhat
oddly; but they were puzzling in various ways. Practically, the
planets were the most swiftly moving bodies to which dynamics
could be adequately applied. With radio-activity a new range of
observations became possible. Individual electrons can be observed,
emanating from radium with a velocity not far short of that of light.
The behavior of bodies moving with these enormous speeds is not
what the old theories would lead us to expect. For one thing, mass
seems to increase with speed in a perfectly definite manner. When
an electron is moving very fast, a bigger force is required to have a
given effect upon it than when it is moving slowly. Then reasons
were found for thinking that the size of a body is affected by its
motion—for example, if you take a cube and move it very fast, it
gets shorter in the direction of its motion, from the point of view of a
person who is not moving with it, though from its own point of view
(i.e. for an observer traveling with it) it remains just as it was. What
was still more astonishing was the discovery that lapse of time
depends on motion; that is to say, two perfectly accurate clocks, one
of which is moving very fast relatively to the other, will not continue
to show the same time if they come together again after a journey.
It follows that what we discover by means of clocks and foot rules,
which used to be regarded as the acme of impersonal science, is
really in part dependent upon our private circumstances, i.e. upon
the way in which we are moving relatively to the bodies measured.
This shows that we have to draw a different line from that which
is customary in distinguishing between what belongs to the observer
and what belongs to the occurrence which he is observing. If a man
is wearing blue spectacles he knows that the blue look of everything
is due to his spectacles, and does not belong to what he is
observing. But if he observes two flashes of lightning, and notes the
interval of time between his observations; if he knows where the
flashes took place, and allows, in each case, for the time the light
took to reach him—in that case, if his chronometer is accurate, he
naturally thinks that he has discovered the actual interval of time
between the two flashes, and not something merely personal to
himself. He is confirmed in this view by the fact that all other careful
observers to whom he has access agree with his estimates. This,
however, is only due to the fact that all these observers are on the
earth, and share its motion. Even two observers in aeroplanes
moving in opposite directions would have at the most a relative
velocity of 400 miles an hour, which is very little in comparison with
186,000 miles a second (the velocity of light). If an electron shot out
from a piece of radium with a velocity of 170,000 miles a second
could observe the time between the two flashes, it would arrive at a
quite different estimate, after making full allowance for the velocity
of light. How do you know this? the reader may ask. You are not an
electron, you cannot move at these terrific speeds, no man of
science has ever made the observations which would prove the truth
of your assertion. Nevertheless, as we shall see in the sequel, there
is good ground for the assertion—ground, first of all, in experiment,
and—what is remarkable—ground in reasonings which could have
been made at any time, but were not made until experiments had
shown that the old reasonings must be wrong.
There is a general principle to which the theory of relativity
appeals, which turns out to be more powerful than anybody would
suppose. If you know that one man is twice as rich as another, this
fact must appear equally whether you estimate the wealth of both in
pounds or dollars or francs or any other currency. The numbers
representing their fortunes will be changed, but one number will
always be double the other. The same sort of thing, in more
complicated forms, reappears in physics. Since all motion is relative,
you may take any body you like as your standard body of reference,
and estimate all other motions with reference to that one. If you are
in a train and walking to the dining-car, you naturally, for the
moment, treat the train as fixed and estimate your motion by
relation to it. But when you think of the journey you are making, you
think of the earth as fixed, and say you are moving at the rate of
sixty miles an hour. An astronomer who is concerned with the solar
system takes the sun as fixed, and regards you as rotating and
revolving; in comparison with this motion, that of the train is so slow
that it hardly counts. An astronomer who is interested in the stellar
universe may add the motion of the sun relatively to the average of
the stars. You cannot say that one of these ways of estimating your
motion is more correct than another; each is perfectly correct as
soon as the reference body is assigned. Now just as you can
estimate a man’s fortune in different currencies without altering its
relations to the fortunes of other men, so you can estimate a body’s
motion by means of different reference bodies without altering its
relations to other motions. And as physics is entirely concerned with
relations, it must be possible to express all the laws of physics by
referring all motions to any given body as the standard.
We may put the matter in another way. Physics is intended to
give information about what really occurs in the physical world, and
not only about the private perceptions of separate observers. Physics
must, therefore, be concerned with those features which a physical
process has in common for all observers, since such features alone
can be regarded as belonging to the physical occurrence itself. This
requires that the laws of phenomena should be the same whether
the phenomena are described as they appear to one observer or as
they appear to another. This single principle is the generating motive
of the whole theory of relativity.
Now what we have hitherto regarded as the spatial and temporal
properties of physical occurrences are found to be in large part
dependent upon the observer; only a residue can be attributed to
the occurrences in themselves, and only this residue can be involved
in the formulation of any physical law which is to have an à priori
chance of being true. Einstein found ready to his hand an instrument
of pure mathematics, called the theory of tensors, which enabled
him to discover laws expressed in terms of the objective residue and
agreeing approximately with the old laws. Where Einstein’s laws
differed from the old ones, they have hitherto proved more in accord
with observation.
If there were no reality in the physical world, but only a number
of dreams dreamed by different people, we should not expect to find
any laws connecting the dreams of one man with the dreams of
another. It is the close connection between the perceptions of one
man and the (roughly) simultaneous perceptions of another that
makes us believe in a common external origin of the different related
perceptions. Physics accounts both for the likenesses and for the
differences between different people’s perceptions of what we call
the “same” occurrence. But in order to do this it is first necessary for
the physicist to find out just what are the likenesses. They are not
quite those traditionally assumed, because neither space nor time
separately can be taken as strictly objective. What is objective is a
kind of mixture of the two called “space-time.” To explain this is not
easy, but the attempt must be made; it will be begun in the next
chapter.
 CHAPTER III:
THE VELOCITY OF LIGHT

M
ost of the curious things in the theory of relativity are
connected with the velocity of light. If the reader is to grasp the
reasons for such a serious theoretical reconstruction, he must have
some idea of the facts which made the old system break down.
The fact that light is transmitted with a definite velocity was first
established by astronomical observations. Jupiter’s moons are
sometimes eclipsed by Jupiter, and it is easy to calculate the times
when this ought to occur. It was found that when Jupiter was
unusually near the earth an eclipse of one of his moons would be
observed a few minutes earlier than was expected; and when Jupiter
was unusually remote, a few minutes later than was expected. It
was found that these deviations could all be accounted for by
assuming that light has a certain velocity, so that what we observe
to be happening in Jupiter really happened a little while ago—longer
ago when Jupiter is distant than when it is near. Just the same
velocity of light was found to account for similar facts in regard to
other parts of the solar system. It was therefore accepted that light
in vacuo always travels at a certain constant rate, almost exactly
300,000 kilometers a second. (A kilometer is about five-eighths of a
mile.) When it became established that light consists of waves, this
velocity was that of propagation of waves in the ether—at least they
used to be in the ether, but now the ether has grown somewhat
shadowy, though the waves remain. This same velocity is that of the
waves used in wireless telegraphy (which are like light waves, only
longer) and in X-rays (which are like light waves, only shorter). It is
generally held nowadays to be the velocity with which gravitation is
propagated, though Eddington considers this not yet certain. (It
used to be thought that gravitation was propagated instantaneously,
but this view is now abandoned.)
So far, all is plain sailing. But as it became possible to make more
accurate measurements, difficulties began to accumulate. The waves
were supposed to be in the ether, and therefore their velocity ought
to be relative to the ether. Now since the ether (if it exists) clearly
offers no resistance to the motions of the heavenly bodies, it would
seem natural to suppose that it does not share their motion. If the
earth had to push a lot of ether before it, in the sort of way that a
steamer pushes water before it, one would expect a resistance on
the part of the ether analogous to that offered by the water to the
steamer. Therefore the general view was that the ether could pass
through bodies without difficulty, like air through a coarse sieve, only
more so. If this were the case, then the earth in its orbit must have
a velocity relative to the ether. If, at some point of its orbit, it
happened to be moving exactly with the ether, it must at other
points be moving through it all the faster. If you go for a circular
walk on a windy day, you must be walking against the wind part of
the way, whatever wind may be blowing; the principle in this case is
the same. It follows that, if you choose two days six months apart,
when the earth in its orbit is moving in exactly opposite directions, it
must be moving against an ether wind on at least one of these days.
Now if there is an ether wind, it is clear that, relatively to an
observer on the earth, light signals will seem to travel faster with the
wind than across it, and faster across it than against it. This is what
Michelson and Morley set themselves to test by their famous
experiment. They sent out light signals in two directions at right
angles; each was reflected from a mirror, and came back to the
place from which both had been sent out. Now anybody can verify,
either by trial or by a little arithmetic, that it takes longer to row a
given distance on a river upstream and then back again, than it
takes to row the same distance across the stream and back again.
Therefore, if there were an ether wind, one of the two light signals,
which consist of waves in the ether, ought to have traveled to the
mirror and back at a slower average rate than the other. Michelson
and Morley tried the experiment, they tried it in various positions,
they tried it again later. Their apparatus was quite accurate enough
to have detected the expected difference of speed or even a much
smaller difference, if it had existed, but not the smallest difference
could be observed. The result was a surprise to them as to
everybody else; but careful repetitions made doubt impossible. The
experiment was first made as long ago as 1881, and was repeated
with more elaboration in 1887. But it was many years before it could
be rightly interpreted.
The supposition that the earth carries the neighboring ether with
it in its motion was found to be impossible, for a number of reasons.
Consequently a logical deadlock seemed to have arisen, from which
at first physicists sought to extricate themselves by very arbitrary
hypotheses. The most important of these was that of Fitzgerald,
developed by Lorentz, and known as the Fitzgerald contraction
hypothesis.
According to this hypothesis, when a body is in motion it
becomes shortened in the direction of motion by a certain proportion
depending upon its velocity. The amount of the contraction was to
be just enough to account for the negative result of the Michelson-
Morley experiment. The journey up stream and down again was to
have been really a shorter journey than the one across the stream,
and was to have been just so much shorter as would enable the
slower light wave to traverse it in the same time. Of course the
shortening could never be detected by measurement, because our
measuring rods would share it. A foot rule placed in the line of the
earth’s motion would be shorter than the same foot rule placed at
right angles to the earth’s motion. This point of view resembles
nothing so much as the White Knight’s “plan to dye my whiskers
green, and always use so large a fan that they could not be seen.”
The odd thing was that the plan worked well enough. Later on,
when Einstein propounded his special theory of relativity (1905), it
was found that the theory was in a certain sense correct, but only in
a certain sense. That is to say, the supposed contraction is not a
physical fact, but a result of certain conventions of measurement
which, when once the right point of view has been found, are seen
to be such as we are almost compelled to adopt. But I do not wish
yet to set forth Einstein’s solution of the puzzle. For the present, it is
the nature of the puzzle itself that I want to make clear.
On the face of it, and apart from hypotheses ad hoc, the
Michelson-Morley experiment (in conjunction with others) showed
that, relatively to the earth, the velocity of light is the same in all
directions, and that this is equally true at all times of the year,
although the direction of the earth’s motion is always changing as it
goes round the sun. Moreover, it appeared that this is not a
peculiarity of the earth, but is true of all bodies: if a light signal is
sent out from a body, that body will remain at the center of the
waves as they travel outwards, no matter how it may be moving—at
least, that will be the view of observers moving with the body. This
was the plain and natural meaning of the experiments, and Einstein
succeeded in inventing a theory which accepted it. But at first it was
thought logically impossible to accept this plain and natural meaning.
A few illustrations will make it clear how very odd the facts are.
When a shell is fired, it moves faster than sound: the people at
whom it is fired first see the flash, then (if they are lucky) see the
shell go by, and last of all hear the report. It is clear that if you could
put a scientific observer on the shell, he would never hear the
report, as the shell would burst and kill him before the sound had
overtaken him. But if sound worked on the same principles as light,
our observer would hear everything just as if he were at rest. In that
case, if a screen, suitable for producing echoes, were attached to
the shell and traveling with it, say a hundred yards in front of it, our
observer would hear the echo of the report from the screen after
just the same interval of time as if he and the shell were at rest.
This, of course, is an experiment which cannot be performed, but
others which can be performed will show the difference. We might
find some place on a railway where there is an echo from a place
further along the railway—say a place where the railway goes into a
tunnel—and when a train is traveling along the railway, let a man on
the bank fire a gun. If the train is traveling towards the echo, the
passengers will hear the echo sooner than the man on the bank; if it
is traveling in the opposite direction, they will hear it later. But these
are not quite the circumstances of the Michelson-Morley experiment.
The mirrors in that experiment correspond to the echo, and the
mirrors are moving with the earth, so that echo ought to move with
the train. Let us suppose that the shot is fired from the guard’s van,
and the echo comes from a screen on the engine. We will suppose
the distance from the guard’s van to the engine to be the distance
that sound can travel in a second (about one-fifth of a mile), and the
speed of the train to be one-twelfth of the speed of sound (about
sixty miles an hour). We now have an experiment which can be
performed by the people in the train. If the train were at rest, the
guard would hear the echo in two seconds; as it is, he will hear it in
2 and ²/₁₄₃ seconds. From this difference, if he knows the velocity
of sound, he can calculate the velocity of the train, even if it is a
foggy night so that he cannot see the banks. But if sound behaved
like light, he would hear the echo in two seconds however fast the
train might be traveling.
Various other illustrations will help to show how extraordinary—
from the point of view of tradition and common sense—are the facts
about the velocity of light. Every one knows that if you are on an
escalator you reach the top sooner if you walk up than if you stand
still. But if the escalator moved with the velocity of light (which it
does not do even in New York), you would reach the top at exactly
the same moment whether you walked up or stood still. Again: if
you are walking along a road at the rate of four miles an hour, and a
motor-car passes you going in the same direction at the rate of forty
miles an hour, if you and the motor-car both keep going the distance
between you after an hour will be thirty-six miles. But if the motor-
car met you, going in the opposite direction, the distance after an
hour would be forty-four miles. Now if the motor-car were traveling
with the velocity of light, it would make no difference whether it met
or passed you: in either case, it would, after a second, be 186,000
miles from you. It would also be 186,000 miles from any other
motor-car which happened to be passing or meeting you less rapidly
at the previous second. This seems impossible: how can the car be
at the same distance from a number of different points along the
road?
Let us take another illustration. When a fly touches the surface of
a stagnant pool, it causes ripples which move outwards in widening
circles. The center of the circle at any moment is the point of the
pool touched by the fly. If the fly moves about over the surface of
the pool, it does not remain at the center of the ripples. But if the
ripples were waves of light, and the fly were a skilled physicist, it
would find that it always remained at the center of the ripples,
however it might move. Meanwhile a skilled physicist sitting beside
the pool would judge, as in the case of ordinary ripples, that the
center was not the fly, but the point of the pool touched by the fly.
And if another fly had touched the water at the same spot at the
same moment, it also would find that it remained at the center of
the ripples, even if it separated itself widely from the first fly. This is
exactly analogous to the Michelson-Morley experiment. The pool
corresponds to the ether; the fly corresponds to the earth; the
contact of the fly and the pool corresponds to the light signal which
Messrs. Michelson and Morley send out; and the ripples correspond
to the light waves.
Such a state of affairs seems, at first sight, quite impossible. It is
no wonder that, although the Michelson-Morley experiment was
made in 1881, it was not rightly interpreted until 1905. Let us see
what, exactly, we have been saying. Take the man walking along a
road and passed by a motor-car. Suppose there are a number of
people at the same point of the road, some walking, some in motor-
cars; suppose they are going at varying rates, some in one direction
and some in another. I say that if, at this moment, a light flash is
sent out from the place where they all are, the light waves will be
186,000 miles from each one of them after a second by his watch,
although the travelers will not any longer be all in the same place. At
the end of a second by your watch it will be 186,000 miles from you,
and it will also be 186,000 miles from a person who met you when it
was sent out, but was moving in the opposite direction, after a
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

ebookname.com