Page:The theory of relativity and its influence on scientific thought.djvu/35

Rh exact law of gravitation, this would have been evidence of a real stratification of the structure of the world—a stratification revealed by no other phenomena. Einstein's law is the simpler law because it is consistent with what we now know of the general plan of world-structure; Newton's law could only be made possible by introducing a novel and specialized feature—a stratified arrangement of structure—which is not revealed in any other phenomena.

Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism afford an example of the other type. These, it is true, are stated as relating to the particular slices of the world of events, which are served up to us like rashers instant by instant. But they can be restated, without alteration of effect, in a form making no reference to slices. This is a very remarkable property of Maxwell's equations which was quite unknown at the time they were first put forward. It was brought to light much later by the researches of Larmor and Lorentz. In consequence of this Einstein is able to take over the whole classical theory of electromagnetism unaltered; he restates it so as to show how it applies generally and is not bound up with the purely terrestrial point of view, but he does not amend the laws. He metes out different treatment to the gravitational laws and electromagnetic laws, because he finds the latter already adapted to his scheme.

If I have succeeded in my object, you will have realized that the present revolution of scientific thought follows in natural sequence on the great revolutions at earlier epochs in the history of science. Einstein's special theory of relativity, which explains the indeterminateness of the frame of space and time, crowns the work of Copernicus who first led us to give up our insistence on a geocentric outlook on nature; Einstein's general theory of relativity, which reveals the curvature