Page:The theory of relativity and its influence on scientific thought.djvu/16

12 'really' be seven and sixpence. The theorist may complain that this last statement tends to make a mystery of phenomena of currency which have really an intelligible explanation; but it is a statement which commends itself to the man who has an eye to the practical applications of currency.

Ptolemy on the earth and Copernicus on the sun are both contemplating the same external universe. But their experiences are different, and it is in the process of experiencing events that they become fitted into the frame of space and time—the frame being different according to the local circumstances of the observer who is experiencing them. That, I take it, is Kant's doctrine, 'Space and time are forms of experience.' The frame then is not in the world; it is supplied by the observer and depends on him. And those relations of simplicity, which we seek when we try to obtain a comprehension of how the universe functions, must lie in the events themselves before they have been arbitrarily fitted into the frame. The most we can hope for from any frame is that it will not have distorted the simplicity which was originally present; whilst an ill-chosen frame may play havoc with the natural simplicity of things. We have seen that the simplicity of planetary motions was obscured in Ptolemy's frame, and became apparent in Copernicus's frame. But for ordinary terrestrial phenomena the position is reversed and Ptolemy's frame allows their natural simplicity to become apparent. In Copernicus's frame the most simple phenomena are brought about by highly complicated processes which mutually cancel one another. Ordinary objects contract and expand as they are moved about, and the changes are concealed by an elaborate conspiracy in which all the quantities of nature—electrical, optical, mechanical, gravitational—have joined. In Copernicus's frame we