Page:Eddington A. Space Time and Gravitation. 1920.djvu/29

Rh supplement it by bringing in time as well as space. We shall need a perfect clock as well as a rigid scale for our measures. It may be difficult to choose an ideal standard clock; but whatever definition we decide on must be a physical definition. We must not dodge it by saying that a perfect clock is one which keeps perfect time. Perhaps the best theoretical clock would be a pulse of light travelling in vacuum to and fro between mirrors at the ends of a rigid scale. The instants of arrival at one end would define equal intervals of time.

Phys. I think your unit of time would change according to the motion of your "clock" through the aether.

Rel. Then you are comparing it with some notion of absolute time. I have no notion of time except as the result of measurement with some kind of clock. (Our immediate perception of the flight of time is presumably associated with molecular processes in the brain which play the part of a material clock.) If you know a better clock, let us adopt it; but, having once fixed on our ideal clock there can be no appeal from its judgments. You must remember too that if you wish to measure a second at one place, you must keep your clock fixed at what you consider to be one place; so its motion is defined. The necessity of defining the motion of the clock emphasises that one cannot consider time apart from space; there is one geometry comprising both.

Phys. Is it right to call this study geometry. Geometry deals with space alone.

Math. I have no objection. It is only necessary to consider time as a fourth dimension. Your complete natural geometry will be a geometry of four dimensions.

Phys. Have we then found the long-sought fourth dimension?

Math. It depends what kind of a fourth dimension you were seeking. Probably not in the sense you intend. For me it only means adding a fourth variable, $$t$$, to my three space-variables $$x$$, $$y$$, $$z$$. It is no concern of mine what these variables really represent. You give me a few fundamental laws that they satisfy, and I proceed to deduce other consequences that may be of interest to you. The four variables may for all I know be the pressure, density, temperature and entropy of a gas; that is of no importance to me. But you would not say that a gas