In the general theory of relativity, as in many other branches of theoretical physics, the material and energetical content of spacetime is considered, in the first instance, as an extended field, which is specified by means of field quantities (energy-momentum-stress tensor, charge-current density, electromagnetic field strength). From this point of view corpuscles (material particles, photons) are constructs obtained by first considering the field quantities as nonvanishing only within certain world tubes, and then passing by limiting processes to the idealisation in which these world tubes are shrunk into world lines. More precisely, this passage to the corpuscular description may be thought of as accomplished by replacing the original field by successive members of a sequence of field distributions, satisfying the same field laws, which cluster more and more in the neighbourhood of the world lines, and for which in some significant sense the total measure approaches a finite limit. Each such world line, together with the limiting measures of those portions of the field quantities associated therewith, is then a corpuscle; the form of the world line determines the motion of the corpuscle, and the associated “corpuscular quantities” its physical attributes (mass or energy, momentum, charge).

This paper deals with certain expansions of analytic functions in series of polynomials. Explicit forms for the polynomials are given in terms of the coefficients of the Taylor's expansion and of prescribed positive constants hk. Under suitable conditions, to be presently discussed, the series converge to the function in the Borel region.

It is well known that the real, skew-symmetric, non-singular, bilinear forms of n + n variables have no invariants. In fact, each of these forms may be transformed into one and the same form, for instance into the one which occurs in the usual representation of the complex group. The standard proofs of this theorem break down in case of infinite forms which are bounded in the sense of Hilbert, one of the impediments being the possibility of a continuous spectrum. The object of this note is to show that, while the usual proofs break down, the theorem itself is true in Hubert's case also.

Whittaker and Ruse have developed forms of Gauss's theorem in general relativity, their theorems connecting integrals of normal force taken over a closed 2-space V2 with integrals involving the distribution of matter taken over an open 3-space bounded by V2. The definition of force employed by them involves the introduction of a normal congruence (with unit tangent vector λi), the “force” relative to the congruence being the negative of the first curvature vector of the congruence (– δλi/δs). This appears at first sight a natural enough definition, because – δλi/δs at an event P represents the acceleration relative to the congruence of a free particle travelling along a geodesic tangent to the congruence at P. In order to give physical meaning to this definition of force it is necessary to specify the congruence λi physically, and it would seem most natural to choose the congruence of world-lines of flow of the medium. Supposing certain conditions satisfied by this congruence (cf. Ruse, loc. cit.), the theory of Ruse is applicable, and from this follows a form of Gauss's theorem.

An affine connection in an n-dimensional manifold Xn defines a system of paths, but conversely a connection is not defined uniquely by a system of paths. It was shown by H. Weyl that any two affine connections whose components are related by an equation of the form

where is the unit affinor, give the same system of paths. In the geometry of a system of paths, a particular parameter on the paths, called the projective normal parameter, plays an important part. This parameter, which is invariant under a transformation of connection (1), was introduced by J. H. .C. Whitehead. It can be defined by means of a Schwarzian differential equation and it is determined up to linear fractional transformations. In § 1 this method is briefly discussed.