Page:Eddington A. Space Time and Gravitation. 1920.djvu/119

VI] some modification may be needed for speeds comparable with that of light.

Another important point to notice is that the attraction of gravitation is simply a geometrical deformation of the straight tracks. It makes no difference what body or influence is pursuing the track, the deformation is a general discrepancy between the "mental picture" and the "true map" of the portion of space-time considered. Hence light is subject to the same disturbance of path as matter. This is involved in the Principle of Equivalence; otherwise we could distinguish between the acceleration of a lift and a true increase of gravitation by optical experiments; in that case the observer for whom light-rays appear to take straight tracks might be described as absolutely unaccelerated and there could be no relativity theory. Physicists in general have been prepared to admit the likelihood of an influence of gravitation on light similar to that exerted on matter; and the problem whether or not light has "weight" has often been considered.

The appearance of $$\gamma$$ as the coefficient of $$dt^2$$ is responsible for the main features of Newtonian gravitation; the appearance of $$\tfrac{1}{\gamma}$$ as the coefficient of $$dr^2$$ is responsible for the principal deviations of the new law from the old. This classification seems to be correct; but the Newtonian law is ambiguous and it is difficult to say exactly what are to be regarded as discrepancies from it. Leaving aside now the time-term as sufficiently discussed, we consider the space-terms alone

The expression shows that space considered alone is non-Euclidean in the neighbourhood of an attracting particle. This is something entirely outside the scope of the old law of gravitation. Time can only be explored by something moving, whether a free particle or the parts of a clock, so that the non-Euclidean character of space-time can be covered up by introducing a field of force, suitably modifying the motion, as a convenient fiction. But space can be explored by static methods; and theoretically