Lý thuyết tương đối của Einstein

The action of the Royal Society at its meeting in London on November 6,in recognizing Dr. Albert Einsteins “theory of relativity” has caused agreat stir in scientific circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Einsteinpropounded his theory nearly fifteen years ago. The present revival ofinterest in it is due to the remarkable confirmation which it received inthe report of the observations made during the suns eclipse of last Mayto determine whether rays of light passing close to the sun are deflectedfrom their course....
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Lý thuyết tương đối của Einstein The Einstein Theory of Relativity Lorentz, Hendrik AntoonPublished: 1920Categorie(s): Non-Fiction, ScienceSource: http://www.gutenberg.org 1About Lorentz: Hendrik Antoon Lorentz (18 July 1853 – 4 February 1928) was a Dutchphysicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeemanfor the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. Healso derived the transformation equations subsequently used by AlbertEinstein to describe space and time.Copyright: This work is available for countries where copyright isLife+70 and in the USA.Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbookshttp://www.feedbooks.comStrictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes. 2NoteWhether it is true or not that not more than twelve persons in all theworld are able to understand Einsteins Theory, it is nevertheless a factthat there is a constant demand for information about this much-debatedtopic of relativity. The books published on the subject are so technicalthat only a person trained in pure physics and higher mathematics isable to fully understand them. In order to make a popular explanation ofthis far-reaching theory available, the present book is published. Professor Lorentz is credited by Einstein with sharing the develop-ment of his theory. He is doubtless better able than any otherman—except the author himself—to explain this scientific discovery. The publishers wish to acknowledge their indebtedness to the NewYork Times, The Review of Reviews andThe Athenaeum for courteous per-mission to reprint articles from their pages. Professor Lorentzs articleappeared originally in The Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant of November19, 1919. 3IntroductionThe action of the Royal Society at its meeting in London on November 6,in recognizing Dr. Albert Einsteins “theory of relativity” has caused agreat stir in scientific circles on both sides of the Atlantic. Dr. Einsteinpropounded his theory nearly fifteen years ago. The present revival ofinterest in it is due to the remarkable confirmation which it received inthe report of the observations made during the suns eclipse of last Mayto determine whether rays of light passing close to the sun are deflectedfrom their course. The actual deflection of the rays that was discovered by the astro-nomers was precisely what had been predicted theoretically by Einsteinmany years since. This striking confirmation has led certain German sci-entists to assert that no scientific discovery of such importance has beenmade since Newtons theory of gravitation was promulgated. This sug-gestion, however, was put aside by Dr. Einstein himself when he was in-terviewed by a correspondent of the New York Times at his home in Ber-lin. To this correspondent he expressed the difference between his con-ception and the law of gravitation in the following terms: “Please imagine the earth removed, and in its place suspended a boxas big as a room or a whole house, and inside a man naturally floating inthe center, there being no force whatever pulling him. Imagine, further,this box being, by a rope or other contrivance, suddenly jerked to oneside, which is scientifically termed ‘difform motion’, as opposed to‘uniform motion.’ The person would then naturally reach bottom on theopposite side. The result would consequently be the same as if he obeyedNewtons law of gravitation, while, in fact, there is no gravitation exertedwhatever, which proves that difform motion will in every case producethe same effects as gravitation. “I have applied this new idea to every kind of difform motion andhave thus developed mathematical formulas which I am convinced givemore precise results than those based on Newtons theory. Newtons for-mulas, however, are such close approximations that it was difficult tofind by observation any obvious disagreement with experience.” Dr. Einstein, it must be remembered, is a physicist and not an astro-nomer. He developed his theory as a mathematical formula. The con-firmation of it came from the astronomers. As he himself says, the crucialtest was supplied by the last total solar eclipse. Observations thenproved that the rays of fixed stars, having to pass close to the sun to 4reach the earth, were deflected the exact amount demanded by Einsteinsformulas. The deflection was also in the direction predicted by him. The question must have occurred to many, what has all this to do withrelativity? When this query was propounded by the Times correspondentto Dr. Einstein he replied as follows: “The ...