Table of Contents
Reading edition
PREFACE iii
Table of Contents xiii
I. THE EINSTEIN $5,000 PRIZE 1
The Donor and the Prize 2
The Judges 5
Three Thousand Words 7
The Competing Essays 9
Looking for the Winner 12
The Winner of the Prize 16
II. THE WORLD—AND US 19
Getting Away from the Greek Ideas 21
Relativism and Reality 23
Laws of Nature 26
Concepts and Realities 29
The Concepts of Space and Time 33
The Reference Frame for Space 36
Time and the Coordinate System 38
The Choice of a Coordinate Frame 41
III. THE RELATIVITY OF UNIFORM MOTION 46
Who Is Moving? 48
Mechanical Relativity 50
The Search for the Absolute 52
The Ether and Absolute Motion 55
The Earth and the Ether 57
A Journey Upstream and Back 58
The Michelson-Morley Experiment 60
The Verdict 63
The “Contraction” Hypothesis 65
Taking the Bull by the Horns 68
Questions of Common Sense 71
Shifting the Mental Gears 72
IV. THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY 76
Light and the Ether 78
The Measurement of Time and Space 80
The Problem of Communication 83
An Einsteinian Experiment 86
Who Is Right? 89
The Relativity of Time and Space 91
Relativity and Reality 95
Time and Space in a Single Package 98
Some Further Consequences 100
Assumption and Consequence 104
Relativity and the Layman 106
Physics vs. Metaphysics 109
V. THAT PARALLEL POSTULATE 111
Terms We Cannot Define 113
Laying the Foundation 115
The Rôle of Geometry 119
What May We Take for Granted? 122
And What Is It All About? 124
Euclid’s Geometry 126
Axioms Made to Order 128
Locating the Discrepancy 130
What the Postulate Really Does 132
The Geometry of Surfaces 133
Euclidean or Non-Euclidean 137
VI. THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM 141
The Four-Dimensional World of Events 144
A Continuum of Points 146
The Continuum in General 148
Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Continua 150
Our World of Four Dimensions 155
The Curvature of Space-Time 158
The Question of Visualization 162
What It All Leads To 165
VII. RELATIVITY 169
The Mechanical Principle of Relativity 170
The Special Principle of Relativity 171
The Four Dimensional Continuum 173
Gravitation and Acceleration 174
The General Principle of Relativity 177
VIII. THE NEW CONCEPTS OF TIME AND SPACE 181
A World of Points 183
The Four-Dimensional World of Events 185
Successive Steps Toward Generality 187
Gravitation and Acceleration 189
Einstein’s Time-Space World 191
The Layman’s Last Doubt 193
IX. THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY 195
The Behavior of Light 197
Space and Time 198
The World of Reality 201
Accelerated Motion 203
X. SPACE, TIME AND GRAVITATION 206
The External World and its Geometry 208
Gravitation and its Place in the Universe 211
Gravitation and Space-Time 214
XI. THE PRINCIPLE OF GENERAL RELATIVITY 218
Gravitation and Acceleration 220
Paths Through the World of Four Dimensions 223
The Universe of Space-Time 225
XII. FORCE VS. GEOMETRY 230
The Relativity of Uniform Motion 233
Universal Relativity 235
The Geometry of Gravitation 237
XIII. AN INTRODUCTION TO RELATIVITY 240
The Electromagnetic Theory of Light 241
The Michelson-Morley Experiment 243
The Lorentz Transformation 245
The First Theory of Relativity 246
The Inclusion of Gravitation 248
XIV. NEW CONCEPTS FOR OLD 251
The World-Frame 253
The World-Fabric 257
Einstein’s Results 261
XV. THE NEW WORLD 265
The World Geometry 267
The Genesis of the Theory 270
The Time Diagram 273
XVI. THE QUEST OF THE ABSOLUTE 276
The Gravitational Hypothesis 281
The Special Relativity Theory 284
XVII. THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF RELATIVITY 287
XVIII. THE PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF RELATIVITY 306
The Special Theory and Its Surprising Consequences 309
The Generalization 313
The Tests 315
XIX. EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF RELATIVITY 318
XX. EINSTEIN’S THEORY OF GRAVITATION 327
XXI. THE EQUIVALENCE HYPOTHESIS 334
XXII. THE GENERAL THEORY 338