Word: spaces
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...electricity and magnetism disturbed this mechanical view. Faraday and Oersted showed that a moving magnet produces an electric field, that a moving electric charge produces a magnetic field. The lines of force in these fields were not arranged in Newtonian straight lines but in curves. After curved fields in space came waves of energy. The wave theory of light, which had been opposed by Newton, was picked up again because it was the only way to explain certain phenomena-for example, the diffraction rings produced when light passes through a small aperture. Before electro-magnetic waves (e.g., wireless waves) were...
Electromagnetic waves were supposed to be transported through space in a jelly-like medium called the ether. But the difficulty of constructing a coherent mathematical picture of the ether proved insuperable. Furthermore, the famed Michelson-Morley experiment showed fairly conclusively that the ether did not exist...
Relativity. Astronomical observations of double stars revolving around each other indicate that the velocity of light is not affected by the motion of its source. Einstein made this a fundamental assumption of Relativity-that the velocity of light in empty space is always the same, whatever the motion of the source or that of an observer. A corollary of this was that there could be no such thing as absolute time, that two events which are simultaneous to one observer may not be simultaneous to another...
When the idea of absolute time is abandoned, every body moving relative to another must have its own time specification as well as length, breadth, and thickness. Thus time becomes a fourth dimension added to the three dimensions of space. The consequences of the theory, when worked out mathematically, are that absolute motion, absolute mass and absolute dimensions must also be shelved. When a body is in motion relative to an observer, he would see (if he had instruments fine enough) that its length in the direction of motion is shortened, that its mass is increased. The increased mass must...
...Evolution of Physics, Drs. Einstein & Infeld admit that modern Quantum Theory has thrown a very powerful searchlight on the atom, but they are dissatisfied with it as a picture of reality. Quantum Theory makes use of old-fashioned absolute time, with three separate space dimensions. But each particle requires its own three space coordinates. So to describe two particles six dimensions are needed; a description of ten particles require's 30 dimensions. That is too abstract for Dr. Einstein. He thinks four dimensions are enough...