“NOT EYE BUT SPIRIT”

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 31, 23 January 1929, Page 3

“NOT EYE BUT SPIRIT”

HOW EINSTEIN PROVED HIS THEORIES NEW TELESCOPE MAY HELP "Not the eye but the spirit furnishes the proof of theories—and that errs most of the time.” In- these words Dr. Elbert Einstein, scientist and violinist, answered a question on whether the2oo-inch telescope to be built in California could afford visual proof of his relativity theory, says the Berlin correspondent of the “New York Times.” Dr. Einstein later said he was near a discovery of far greater moment than relativity, but declined to explain its nature for the present. This is undoubtedly the new theory of mechanics and electro-dynamics recently announced by cable.

Dr. Einstein has just returned to Berlin, continues the correspondent, after a summer’s holiday taken on strict orders of his doctor as necessary to give his weak heart proper rest. Near Lubeck the scholar hid from the public and for months his whereabouts were generally unknown. For the first part of his sojourn he amused himself in a sailing boat). When his physician discovered this pastime he forbade his patient even that. From then on Dr. Einstein sat on a sunny beach and appeased his desire to work by playnig his violin to the waves. Now he has so far recovered as to be able to nut into print some new theories with which his busy mind wrestled while he was supposed to be taking a complete rest. HATES DISTURBANCE. The rest has not improved the savant’s temper when he believed his time is being encroached upon. But Frau Einstein, the doorkeeper of her husband’s study, a little cubbyhole on top of the apartment house near Bayerische Platz, where he lives, is kindly. She suggested tactics necessary for entering the scientist’s den. “He will scream and shriek and rave,” she warned, “but never mind that. When he calms down he may have something to say.” The first part of her prediction proved correct. Dr. Einstein failed to hear the door of his garret room open, and only when his wife spoke was he aware that his solitude had been broken. Then the storm broke, but it subsided as quickly as it rose. “Professor, do you think the new telescope with a 200-inch lens to be erected in California will be able to disclose visual proof of relativity.” the writer asked hastily, adding, “You are aware that this telescope will be four times the size of the largest one now in the world.’' Laying aside the pad filled with mysterious signs on which he was writing the discoverer of the relativity theory answered: “Not the eye, but the spirit, furnishes the proof of theories—and that errs most of the time.” “Is it your opinion that visual proof of relativity will be disclosed by this or any future telescope?” he was asked. Dr. Einstein smoothed his grey locks for a moment, and then answered quietly, while gazing fixedly at walls filled with strange instruments, charts of the heavens, globes of the earth, and books on science and mathematics: “The only means of proving the relativity theory with a telescope is by measuring the deflection of light through the field of "cavity. This proof has already been furnished, and is correct without the slightest doubt. What one may ex-

pect from the great telescope of dimensions not yet constructed lies in another territory—namely, exploration of the system of fixed stars.” Dr. Einstein then said that he was treading on the edge of a great scientific discovery, one that will startle the world far more than the relativity theory. He has already completed one treatise, which he has submitted to the Academv of Science. He is now evolving another theory. Both concern relativity, he admitted, but regarding the nature of his discovery he is unwilling to speak until he is satisfied with the presentation.

Dr. Einstein is still forbidden to work more than a few hours daily, but he remains most of the time in his little room, softly playing his favourite tunes, while his active mind wanders into the realms he has created with his theory of relativity. WHAT THE TELESCOPE MAY DO. That the giant telescope might show objects near the very limits of space itself is one of its fascinating possibilities hinted at by Professor H. S. Turner, the English astronomer in commenting on the plans of the California Institute of Technology for a 200-inch reflector. “There is,” writes Professor Turner in “The Sunday Observer,” “a feature of the situation which can only be handled somewhat delicately, lest too great an impression be inadvertently made. If distances already gauged could extend, as the substitution of a 300-inch telescope for the 100-inch one might extend them, they would approach, not, perhaps, Einstein’s suggested limit to space, but at any rate a respectable fraction of it. “Einstein’s' work leads him to think that space is not indefinitely extended like a fiat plane, but limited, like the surface of a sphere which returns to itself, and that, just a? there is a radius for this surface in two dimensions, so there is a radius for space in' three for which he has assessed a value. “If we could measure distances comparable with this value, we might learn something, even if at present we scarcely know what. “We mav be tempted to sneer at such strange ideas. Many people sneered at Einstein's prediction that rays of light could be sent by gravity, until the eclipses of 1919 and 1922 proved that he was triumphantly right. “In any case it is clear that the larger telescope can make an advance which cannot be made in any other way. and it is delightful to find a decision to make one—even though prudence has restricted the size to 200 inches rather than 300—has been taken and the money actually provided.”