EINSTEIN’S THEORY

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11248, 28 June 1922, Page 7

EINSTEIN’S THEORY

AND MR JOSEPH TAYLOR. PROFESSOR SOMMERVILLE EXPLAINS. (To the Editor ‘"N.Z. Times/') Sir, —In tho issue of the “Times" on Monday, June 28th, there appears an interview with a Mr Joseph Taylor dealing l with Einstein's theory. If the paragraph had not referred to this gentleman as a ‘ well-knovn authority on solar physics, astronomy, etc./' no one could possibly have been misled by it, and, indeed, it is scarcely „ likely that anyone who has devoted any time at all to tne serious study of the theory of relativity will have any difficulty in assigning to Mr Taylor's statements their true face value. But as most {people, while perhaps interested in this much-discussed: theory, know little about it, the assertions of a "well-known, authority" may easily exert more influence than they deserve. It is fairly obvious that Mr Taylor is quite candid and sincere when he declares that the theory “is an incoherent pile of heterogeneous mathematical formulae .... a heap of verbal jargon," for it must so appear to anyone who misunderstands it m> thoroughly as he does. After all, there is little that calls for direct reply in the interview reported. To go into detail would be to recapitulate the whole theory, and there are now many excellent little books written ini simple terms which give a fairly good general idea of its trend. A few errors of fact do, however, call for contradiction. “Einstein crows over the demolition of Newtonian astronomy/' Einstein may be allowed a pardonable pride in having constructed a generalisation which Includes Newtonian astronomy as a first approximation, but he would be the last to detract from the greatness of Newton's achievement, and to speak of the demolition of Newtonian astronomy is sheer nonsense. “Hie strongest point is an attack on Euclid." If this were really so, Einstein would have little claim to fame, for it is nearly a hundred years since the birth of the non-Euclid-oan ideas of which Einstein makes use. The theory “contains no proposition of a positive or creative nature." On the contrary, it is so creative that Newton's law of gravitation, hitherto considered one of the widest generalisations in natural philosophy, is derived from it. in the most natural manner; and as regards positive results, it has provided natural explanations of some results for which in the past a cause has been sought in specially-constructed theories, and without success. D. M. y. SOMMERVILUS. June 27th, 1922.