Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO GENERAL PHYSICAL THEORY
- PART II MINKOWSKI'S FOUR-DIMENSION WORLD
- PART III THE TRANSITION TO MECHANICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER XI THE DYNAMICS OF THE ELECTRON
- CHAPTER XII RELATIVITY AND DYNAMICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER XIII THE DYNAMICS OF A PARTICLE
- CHAPTER XIV THE DYNAMICS OF CONTINUOUS MATERIAL MEDIA
- CHAPTER XV RELATIVITY AND AN OBJECTIVE AETHER
- CHAPTER XVI RELATIVITY AND PROBABILITY
- CHAPTER XVII CONCLUDING REMARKS
- INDEX
- SELECTION FROM THE GENERAL CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
CHAPTER XV - RELATIVITY AND AN OBJECTIVE AETHER
from PART III - THE TRANSITION TO MECHANICAL THEORY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2017
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- PART I THE PRINCIPLE OF RELATIVITY IN RELATION TO GENERAL PHYSICAL THEORY
- PART II MINKOWSKI'S FOUR-DIMENSION WORLD
- PART III THE TRANSITION TO MECHANICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER XI THE DYNAMICS OF THE ELECTRON
- CHAPTER XII RELATIVITY AND DYNAMICAL THEORY
- CHAPTER XIII THE DYNAMICS OF A PARTICLE
- CHAPTER XIV THE DYNAMICS OF CONTINUOUS MATERIAL MEDIA
- CHAPTER XV RELATIVITY AND AN OBJECTIVE AETHER
- CHAPTER XVI RELATIVITY AND PROBABILITY
- CHAPTER XVII CONCLUDING REMARKS
- INDEX
- SELECTION FROM THE GENERAL CATALOGUE OF BOOKS PUBLISHED BY THE CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Summary
It is an outstanding objection to the principle of relativity that the propagation of electromagnetic effects through space seems inseparable in thought from the conception of an objective aether; whereas, if the principle is in fact universally valid, such a conception seems impossible, for the mind shrinks from an objective medium which is not in some sense unique.
It is the object of this chapter to examine this difficulty, not with the hope of finally settling the question, but of shewing that a reconciliation is not impossible.
In the first place, the objective aether as commonly now conceived is a medium everywhere at—or approximately so—through which a disturbance is propagated according to certain laws, the disturbances constituting in effect the phenomena of which we are cognizant. But although the attempt to assimilate the medium to a stationary elastic solid of purely Newtonian mechanical properties has been given up, yet the influence of that phase in the development of the conception remains in that the aether is in practice identified with the frame of reference relative to which the motion of bodies is recorded.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Principle of Relativity , pp. 193 - 204Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011