Note 1 — XIV NEW CONCEPTS FOR OLD

Commander McHardy uses the term “event” in a sense somewhat different from that seen in a majority of the essays. He reserves for the four-dimensional element—the instant of time at a point in space—the name “point-event”; and the term “event” he applies to a collection of these forming, together, an observable whole. An actual physical happening, like a railroad wreck or a laboratory experiment, it will be realized is of the latter sort, occupying an appreciable region of space rather than a single point, and an appreciable interval of time rather than a single second. To the element, the “point-event” of Commander McHardy’s essay, this bears the same relation that the geometer’s solid bears to his point. This comment is in no sense to be taken as criticism of Commander McHardy’s terminology, which rather appeals to us; we make it merely to guard against confusion in the reader’s mind.—Editor. ↑