Note 8 — III EINSTEIN

How Einstein’s Conception of Time and Space Led to a New View of Gravitation. In our conventional language we speak of the sun as exerting a “force” on the earth. We have seen, however, that this force brings about a “distortion” or “strain” in world-lines; or, what amounts to the same thing, a “distortion” or “strain” of time and space. The sun’s “force,” the “force” of any body in space, is the “force” due to gravity; and these “forces” may now be treated in terms of the laws of time and space. “The earth,” Prof. Eddington tells us, “moves in a curved orbit, not because the sun exerts any direct pull, but because the earth is trying to find the shortest way through a space and time which have been tangled up by an influence radiating from the sun.”8