PlanetPhysics/Heuristic Value of the Theory of Relativity

The Heuristic Value of the Theory of Relativity

edit

From Relativity: The Special and General Theory by Albert Einstein Our train of thought in the foregoing pages can be epitomised in the following manner. Experience has led to the conviction that, on the one hand, the principle of relativity holds true and that on the other hand the velocity of transmission of light in vacuo has to be considered equal to a constant  . By uniting these two postulates we obtained the law of transformation for the rectangular co-ordinates </math>x, y, z t  of the original coordinate system  , we introduce new space-time variables   of a co-ordinate system  . In this connection the relation between the ordinary and the accented magnitudes is given by the Lorentz transformation. Or in brief: General laws of nature are co-variant with respect to Lorentz transformations.

This is a definite mathematical condition that the theory of relativity demands of a natural law, and in virtue of this, the theory becomes a valuable heuristic aid in the search for general laws of nature. If a general law of nature were to be found which did not satisfy this condition, then at least one of the two fundamental assumptions of the theory would have been disproved. Let us now examine what general results the latter theory has hitherto evinced.

References

edit

This article is derived from the Einstein Reference Archive (marxists.org) 1999, 2002. Einstein Reference Archive which is under the FDL copyright.