CHAPTER II
RELATIVITY
The views of time and space, which I have to set forth, have their foundation in experimental physics. Therein is their strength. Their tendency is revolutionary. From henceforth space in itself and time in itself sink to mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two preserves an independent existence.
H. Minkowski (1908).
There are two parties to every observation—the observed and the observer.
What we see depends not only on the object looked at, but on our own circumstances—position, motion, or more personal idiosyncracies. Sometimes by instinctive habit, sometimes by design, we attempt to eliminate our own share in the observation, and so form a general picture of the world outside us, which shall be common to all observers. A small speck on the horizon of the sea is interpreted as a giant steamer. From the window of our railway carriage we see a cow glide past at fifty miles an hour, and remark that the creature is enjoying a rest. We see the starry heavens revolve round the earth, but decide that it is really the earth that is revolving, and so picture the state of the universe in a way which would be acceptable to an astronomer on any other planet.
The first step in throwing our knowledge into a common stock must be the elimination of the various individual standpoints and the reduction to some specified standard observer. The picture of the world so obtained is none the less relative. We have not eliminated the observer's share; we have only fixed it definitely.
To obtain a conception of the world from the point of view of no one in particular is a much more difficult task. The position of the observer can be eliminated; we are able to grasp the conception of a chair as an object in nature—looked at all round, and not from any particular angle or distance. We can think of it without mentally assigning ourselves some position with respect to it. This is a remarkable faculty, which has evidently been greatly assisted by the perception of solid relief
