March 14, 1879

The Nation
712
[Vol. 120, No. 3129
The A B C of Relativitv
-
By
the Anarchist
philosophical consequences of relativity are neither

so great nor so startling as i s sometimes thought. The
theory does not say that
is relative: on t h e contrary, it gives a technique for clistinguishing what is relative from what belongs to a physical occurrence in its o w n
right. Nevertheless,when the ideas involved in Einsteins
workhave become familiar, as they will when they are
taught in schools, certain changes in our habits of thought
are likely t o result land to have great importance in t h e long
run.
One thing which emerges is that physics tells us much
less about the physical world that we thought it did. Almost
all the great principles of traditional physics t u r n out to
be like the great law that there are always three feet to a
yard; others turn out to be downright Ealse. The conservation of mass is one of those that have had to go. Mass used
to be defined as quantity of matter, and as far as experio r diminished. But
ment showed it wasneverincreased
with the greater accuracy of modern measurements this is
found to be not the case. One would suppose that if you
have four one-pound weights and you put them all together
into the scales theywould together weigh four pounds. This
is a fond delusion; they weigh ratherless, though notenough
less to be discovered by even the mostcarefulmeasurements. It is only when things can be packed together very
tightthatthe
defect becomes noticeable. Four hydrogen
nuclei put together in one helium nucleus weigh measurably
less than they did before they were put together. The mass
of a body has turned out to be a portion of its energy, but
not a strictly constant portion. The conservation of energy
isnotfalse,but
is a result of
conventions of measurement and nomenclature, not a genuine law of nature. Traditionalphysics,broadlyspeaking,
has collapsed into two
positions,tautologiesandgeography.
There are, however,
newerportions of physics, such as the theory of quanta,
which do not come under this head but appear to give genuine knowledge of empirical laws.
Theworldwhich
the theory of relativie presents t o
our imagination is not so much a world of things in motion a s a world of
It is true that there are still
conelectrons and protons which persist, but they are to be
ceived a s a string of connected events, like the successive
notes of a song. It is events that are the stuff of relativity
physics. Between two events which a r e not too remote from
each other there is, in the general as in thespecial theory, a
relation called interval which is independent of our ways
of measuring; the formula forit becomes a little more complicated than in the particularcase dealt withby the special
theory, but the same kind of considerations apply. This one
relation of interval takes the place of the two relations of
distance in space and lapseof time which common sense and
the older physics believed in. Strictly speaking, the interval is only definite when two events are very neartogether.
There are many ways of traveling from one event to another; you may part from a friend at Victoria, go round
the. world and meet your friend at Euston on your return,
he having stayed at home all the time. If your life and his
meanwhile were both divided into number of little bits and
the intervals represented by these bits were added up they
would not come to exactly the same amount, though in both
cases the total would be very nearly representedby the lapse
of terrestrilal time. If youcould travel very much faster,
the difference would become greater. Bodies left to themselves travel from 03 event t o another by a route which
makes the total interval a maximum, in the sense that any
other route not differing very much from the one chosen
would giveasmaller: total interval. But there is not any
one quantity which can be called
total interval between
two distant events wfthout regard to the route chosen. It
is only when two events are very near together that there
is
such a relation a s
interval between them. The whole of
relativity physics, in fact, is a much more step-by-step rnatter than thephysics and geometry of former days. Euclids
straight lines have to be replaced by light-rays, which are
not quite straightwhen they pass neara heavy body like the
sun. The sum of the angles of a triangle is still thought to
be two right angles in very remote regions of empty space,
but not where there is matter in the neighborhood. Propositions which used to be proved by reasoning have now become either conventions or merely approximate truths verified by observation. It is a curious fact that, as reasoning
improves, its claims to demonstrative power grow less and
less.
The collapse of the notion of one all-embracing time, in
whichall
eventsthroughouttheuniverse
can bedated,
must in thelong run affect our views as to cause and effect,
evolution, and many other matters. The poet speaks of
One far-off divine event
To
the whole creation
But if the event is sufficiently f a r off, and parts of creation
move sufficiently quickly, some parts will judge that the
event has already happened, while others will judge that it
is still
the future. This
spoils the poetry. The second
line ought to be:
To whichsome parts of the creation move, while other
parts move away from it.
But this wont do.
In the Einsteinianworld there is moreindividualism
and less government than in t h a t of Newton. I n Newtons
theory of the solar system the sun is a monarch whose beheststheplanetshaveto
obey. In Einsteinstheorythe
planets never notice the sun, but adopt the easiest course at
each moment,like waterrunning down hill. This i s in
accordance with what is called the Principle of Lelast Action, a kind of law of cosmic laziness, according to which
every body does as little as it can. The word dynamic
has come to mean, in newspaper language, energetic
and
bustling; but if it meant illustrating the principles
of
dynamics it ought to be applied to the people in hot climates who sit under banana trees waiting for the fruit to
drop into their mouths.
It has been customary f o r people to draw arguments
from the laws of nature as to what we ought to
Such
The Nation
June 24,19251
arguments seem t o me a mistake; to imitate nature may be

merely slavish. But if nature is to be our model it seems
thattheanarchists have the best of theargument.The
physical universe is orderly, not because there is a central
government but because every body minds its own business.
No two particles of matter ever come into contact; when
they get too close they each move off. If a man were had
up f o r knocking another man down he would be scientifically correct in pleading that he never touched him. What
happened was that there wasahillinspace-time
in the
region of the other mans nose and it fell down the hill.
The notion of force, which used t o be prominent in
dynamics, has disappeared except as a fiction which is sometimes convenient. Between bodies thereare occurrences,
such as light-waves: we know something of their laws, just
so much as can be expressed in mathematical formulae, but
nothing of their nature. What we know about the physical
world is extremely abstract, f a r more so than people used
to think. We naturally interpret the world pictorial,ly, but
in fact we only know certain general characteristics of its
changes. We do not know what changes, or what are its
variousstates; we only know that changes succeed each
other periodically, orspreadwith
a certain speed. Even
713
now we are probably not at the end of the process of stripping away what is merelyimaginationinorder
t o reach
the core of true scientific knowledge.
Abstraction is difficult, but is the source of pDwer. A
financier can deal in wheat or cotton without needingever t o
have seen either; all h e needs,t o know is whether theywill go
up or down. Similarly, the physicist knows nothing of matter except certain laws of its movements, but this howledge
is enough to enable himtomanipulatematter..Attheend,
of whole strings of equations which deal with things whose
intrinsic character can never be known to us we arrive at
a result which can be interpreted in terms of our own perceptions and utilized to bring about desired effects in our
own lives. For aught we h o w t o the contrarg, a dynamo
may be a colony of souls, a s Leibnitz thought. There is no
reason to think so, but there is equally no reason t o think
the opposite. All we know about it is the rules according t o
which it produces perceptions in ourselves. The find conclusion is that we know very little, and yet it is astonishing
t h a t we know so much, and still more astonishing that so
little knowledge can give us so much power.
is
of, a series
articles
ham
appeared
..
mergmg
exico
By ERNEST GRUENING
wm
secries
a visit
East
will be
111. Land and Labor

N his
back to Mexico to assume office- after a three
months trip abroad, President-elect Calles passed
through Washington last November. After luncheon at the
White
he was strolling through its grounds flanked
by his host, President Coolidge, and by former President
Taft. A motion-picture man, eagerto record this unique
occasion, darted ahead.
little closer together, please,
he called, as the three-past, present, and future Presidents
came down the path.
you think it quite proper, ex-President Taft said
toPresident
Coolidge, for us tobe
squeezing Mexico
between us in this fashion? Whereupon all three chuckled.
It wasPresident-elect
Calles who related this incident
to me.
I heard an echo of General Calless speech to American
business men last fall in which he had pointed out that his
program of raising the Mexican masses standard of living
should commend itself to
their
self-interest. I n -New
Orleans the chairman of a delegation from the Chamber
of Commerce addressedhim
as follows: Mr. Presidentelect, I want to say to you, sir, t h a t speech of yours in
New York was the most inspiring address Ive ever read.
No nobler idea was ever conceived by mortal man than to
raise
ten million people to the point where they g o t a
purchasing power.
he pledged thesupport of his
organization.
As for the great mass of Americans it was they who
led the way in a spontaneous development of good-will towardourneighborstothe

South. Four years ago the
Republican platformmadeinterventionimminent.Albert
Fall
was
in
the
Cabinet. Secretary
Hughes
was
telling
a
Mexico what it must do in order to bask in the sunshine
of hisfavorand
be recognized. Now no one dreams of
discussing whether Calles should o r should not be recognized
by our State Department.
The question then naturally arises,Can President Calles
keep on friendly terms with American business and with
our Administration and still fulfil his revolutionary pledges?
Theanswer,
it appearsto
me, is inthe
affirmative.
He is doingboth, and canincreasingly do both. The t w o
courses arenot only not incompatible-they are actually
interdependent.
I have pointed out thatwhile the Mexican revolutionary
concept which aims to- bring about fundamental changes in
Mexico is not bolshevist in the current use of the word,
its translation into reality has
been grievouslydefective,
President Calles inherits an agrarian mess that is desperately tangled.Communities that shouldhave land havent
it. Others haveland that is s o sterile that it is useless.
Others have land but lack the implements and seeds to make
it properly fruitful. Still others which do not want land
have had it thrust upon them, are not cultivating it, and
are furnishing ammunition for propaganda t h a t n o natives
desire land. On the other hand, estates that were furnishing
the country much-needed foodstuffshave
been damaged
productivelyto
thedetriment
of theentire
nation-for
Mexico must import at higher prices what she cannot
New agricultural activity hasbeen rendered timid notknowing whether the agrarian reform would follow the law or
be guided by the whims or acquisitive propensities of some
public official. Payment
expropriatedlandhas
been

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The Nation

[Vol. 120, No. 3129

philosophical consequences of relativity are neither

arguments seem t o me a mistake; to imitate nature may be

111. Land and Labor

led the way in a spontaneous development of good-will towardourneighborstothe

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