Abstract
It is very difficult to present the theory of relativity in simple terms without the aid of mathematical expressions and without relying on readers’ prior general knowledge of the most important areas of physics. A whole range of the main concepts of special relativity theory and particularly general relativity theory can be exactly expressed only in mathematical formulas.
TN: Published by Moskovski Rabochii, Moscow, 1928.
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Notes
- 1.
BH: Strictly speaking one can make three assumptions regarding the ether:
I. The ether is fully carried by moving bodies, so that the speed of the ether inside the moving bodies is equal to the speed of the body. This is H. Hertz’s hypothesis. Should it be true, we would have been unable to discover the movement of bodies in the ether similarly to being unable to discover the movement of a railway carriage in experiments with the movement of sound when the carriage was closed, and the air moved with it. But a number of experimental results disagree with this hypothesis and call for its rejection.
II. The ether is partly carried by bodies. This is the Fresnel and Fizeau hypothesis that also has been unacceptable.
III. The ether is not carried by bodies at all. This is Lorentz’s hypothesis. In this case we must discover the movement of bodies vis-à-vis the ether exactly like in our example with the moving railway carriage without front and back walls when we were able to discover its movement vis-à-vis the air. Throughout the text when we speak about the stationary ether we mean the ether of Lorentz that is not carried by bodies, i.e. the ether that is stationary.
- 2.
BH: Because the medium is not connected to the system.
- 3.
TN: The previous two sentences are quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 243).
- 4.
TN: Dialectics of Nature, Engels (1988, p. 516).
- 5.
TN: The last two paragraphs are quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 244). However he uses the term “facilities” rather than “organisation” of the subject.
- 6.
TN: The last sentence is quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 245).
- 7.
TN: English translation from Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin (1977, p. 137).
- 8.
TN: English translation from Philosophical Notebooks, Lenin (1976, p. 358).
- 9.
TN: English translation from Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin (1977, p. 137).
- 10.
TN: Presumably this refers to Engels’s statement, referring to Hegel, that reciprocal action is the true “causa finalis” (final cause) of all things. “We cannot go back further than to knowledge of this reciprocal action, for the very reason that there is nothing behind to know.” Dialectics of Nature, Engels (1988, p. 512).
- 11.
TN: English translation from Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin (1977, p. 136). Italics in original.
- 12.
TN: Josephson (1991, p. 245), summarises as follows: “All knowledge of necessity includes a subjective element. The process of cognition is the process of the interaction between the subject and the object. In this interaction the object is revealed to the subject more and more fully. At each given degree knowledge is relative, but relative knowledge is a stage on the path to absolute knowledge. The process of cognition is a historical process.”
- 13.
TN: Huygens (1969, p. 3).
- 14.
BH: We understand mechanistic atomic science as an approach which allows the reduction of all physical phenomena to the motion of discrete (separate) material particles.
- 15.
BH: The phenomenological approach is understood in physics as an approach that sets its task to describe the laws of phenomena but at the same time to fundamentally deny any general natural scientific worldview, including any mechanistic or any other rationale.
- 16.
BH: As a reminder, we call a part of space where any forces act a force field.
- 17.
TN: This paragraph is quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 243).
- 18.
BH: Albert Einstein, “Aether and the Theory of Relativity”, Address delivered on May 5th, 1920, at the University of Leyden, Netherlands. TN: See Einstein (2010, p. 8).
- 19.
TN: The last phrase is quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 243).
- 20.
TN: This sentence is quoted by Josephson (1991, p. 244).
- 21.
TN: See Einstein (2010, p. 6).
- 22.
Josephson (1991, pp. 243–245).
- 23.
Josephson (1991, p. 244).
- 24.
Gorelik and Frenkel (1994, pp. 50–53).
- 25.
Wilczek (2008, p. 10).
- 26.
Ibid., p. 73.
References
Einstein, A. (2010). Sidelights on relativity. New York: Dover.
Engels, F. (1988). Marx Engels collected works (Vol. 25). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Gorelik, G. E., & Frenkel, V. Y. (1994). Matvei Petrovich Bronstein and Soviet theoretical physics in the thirties. Basel: Springer.
Huygens, C. (1969). Treatise on light. New York: Dover.
Josephson, P. R. (1991). Physics and politics in revolutionary Russia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Lenin, V. (1976). Collected works (Vol. 38). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Lenin, V. (1977). Collected works (Vol. 14). Moscow: Progress Publishers.
Wilczek, F. (2008). The lightness of being: Mass, ether, and the unification of forces. New York: Basic Books.
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Hessen, B. (2021). (Selections from) The Main Ideas of the Theory of Relativity. In: Talbot, C., Pattison, O. (eds) Boris Hessen: Physics and Philosophy in the Soviet Union, 1927–1931. History of Physics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70045-4_9
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