Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-ndw9j Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-13T00:54:24.999Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Relativity: An Epistemological Appraisal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Henry Margenau  and
Richard A. Mould
Henry Margenau
Affiliation:
Yale University
Richard A. Mould
Affiliation:
Yale University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper is the forerunner of an extensive logical analysis of the relativity idea, in which an axiomatic structure based upon the principles of topology is developed. It is meant to expose the manner in which relativity stretches from the pole of pure conception to that of factual observation, from the a priori to the a posteriori. We take pains to show, in connection with special relativity, precisely which elements are postulational and which are verifiable empirically. Our attempt can be somewhat naively characterized as an effort to show how misguided it is to “derive” relativity from such experimental facts as the Michelson-Morley experiment—as so many textbooks profess to do.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , October 1957 , pp. 297 - 307
Copyright
Copyright © 1957, The Williams & Wilkins Company

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

Part of a project sponsored by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

References

1. Maroenau, H., “The Nature of Physical Reality” McGraw-Hill Co.Google Scholar
2. Carnap, R., The Methodological Character of Theoretical Concepts. The Foundations of Science and the Concepts of Psychoanalysis. Minnesota Press, 1956.Google Scholar
3. For a concise statement of the change which took place in Einstein's view of coordinate systems, and how this change effected his principle of relativity, see P 117 in “The Principle of Relativity” by Einstein and others. Dover Publications, Inc. Translated from “Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie”, Ann. der Phyk 49 (1916).Google Scholar
4. These include all Gaussian coordinates. See Einstein, A., “Relativity, the Special and General Theory”, Henry Holt and Co. New York.Google Scholar
5. Grünbaum, A., Amer. Jour, of Phys. 23, 7 450 (1955) p. 456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6. Lindsay and Margenau, “Foundations of Physics” John Wiley and Sons, p. 335.Google Scholar
7. Rossi, B. and Hall, D. H., Phys. Rev. 59, 223 (1941).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
8. Bucherer, A. H., Phys. Zeitschr. 9, 755 (1908).Google Scholar
9. Fizbau, H., C.R. 33, 349 (1851); Ann d. Phys und Chem. Erg 3, 457 (1853).Google Scholar