Page:The principle of relativity (1920).djvu/165

 clocks. Consider two material points of a solid body at rest; then according to these conceptions their corresponds to these points a wholly definite extent of length, independent of kind, position, orientation and time of the body.

Similarly let us consider two positions of the pointers of a clock which is at rest with reference to a co-ordinate system; then to these positions, there always corresponds, a time-interval of a definite length, independent of time and place. It would be soon shown that the general relativity theory can not hold fast to this simple physical significance of space and time.

§ 2. About the reasons which explain the extension of the relativity-postulate.

To the classical mechanics (no less than) to the special relativity theory, is attached an episteomological defect, which was perhaps first cleanly pointed out by E. Mach. We shall illustrate it by the following example; Let two fluid bodies of equal kind and magnitude swim freely in space at such a great distance from one another (and from all other masses) that only that sort of gravitational forces are to be taken into account which the parts of any of these bodies exert upon each other. The distance of the bodies from one another is invariable. The relative motion of the different parts of each body is not to occur. But each mass is seen to rotate by an observer at rest relative to the other mass round the connecting line of the masses with a constant angular velocity (definite relative motion for both the masses). Now let us think that the surfaces of both the bodies (S_{1} and S_{2}) are measured with the help of measuring rods (relatively at rest); it is then found that the surface of S_{1} is a sphere and the surface of the other is an ellipsoid of rotation. We now