Open for Repairs

The General Theory of Relativity is supported by an impressive body of astronomical observation. Relativity explains the orbital eccentricities of Mercury, the "stretching" of light from heavy stars, the bending of starlight around the sun, the slowed motion of solar atoms, the expanding universe. Albert Einstein, however, has refrained from putting up any "No Trespassing" signs around his mathematical edifice. He has done some mending himself, particularly on the shape of the cosmos, and he is glad to have other mathematicians drop in for a little tinkering. Modern relativity theory in fact owes a great deal to the carpentry of Weyl, Milne, Lemaitre, Born, Eddington, Tolman and others. But the good professor keeps a sharp eye on the craftsmanship of his colleagues.

Side by side in the Physical Re-view last week appeared a suggestion for recasting, not the General Theory, but the older Special Theory (1905) and the first publication of an "embarrassing solution" of an old Einstein field equation.

The Special Theory blew up the notion of an absolute frame of location or "hitching post" in the universe. Two observers moving relatively toward each other had to carry their own frames of reference. The two would not agree as to the separation of events in either space or time. But the interval--the separation of events in four-dimensional space-time--would be the same for all observers if their relative speeds were constant.

Relativist Leigh Page, 51, of Yale, has worked out new frames of reference for two observers whose relative speeds are accelerating. Taking only the velocity of light as a constant, he has even devised mathematical formulas to serve as rigid measuring rods and regular clocks. These new frames, which Dr. Page believes will be useful for describing atomic motions, require the abandonment of a non-varying space-time interval. Whether his innovations will be worth abandoning that foundation stone is a question for the world jury of Relativity logicians.

The "embarrassing solution" was the work of Polish-born Relativist Ludwik Silberstein, 63, of Toronto. Albert Einstein, convinced that Nature is not divided into compartments, wants to confine charged and uncharged particles, gravity and light within a single geometrical framework. Some time ago he concocted relativistic field equations in which particles were treated as "singularities" in the field. Dr. Silberstein carried this out for a two-particle problem, found that, though all stress between the particles disappeared, they remained stationary. Since either Newtonian or Einsteinian gravity would require them to fall together, this seemed to be a reductio ad absurdum. The New York tabloid Daily News headlines: SILBER TOPS EIN WHEN STEIN MEETS STEIN.

Silberstein insisted that he had published his two-particle solution at Einstein's suggestion. In response to queries from the Press, however, Einstein stated that the Silberstein solution was based on a misconception. In any case it was irrelevant, since Einstein and a collaborator at Princeton last year made a new start on a Unified Field Theory, dispensing altogether with "singularities" (TIME, July 15). As to the "New Relativity" of Dr. Page, Einstein pronounced it in its present form incapable of experimental confirmation, and therefore difficult to prove either correct or incorrect.

"I should like to make your inquiry," Dr. Einstein concluded, "the occasion for some general remarks on the reporting of scientific news in the daily press. It is certainly proper to keep the public informed about scientific concepts on which a certain degree of collusiveness has already been obtained. On the other hand, I regard it as harmful when problems that have not as yet been sufficiently cleared up are reported in a mysterious and obscure manner."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.