AN UNREAL WORLD.

Hokitika Guardian, 29 December 1923, Page 4

AN UNREAL WORLD.

\Yii.\T MR KtsTKIX I'ItOVMS. All the ill, -el vers *f the solar eclipse on M;n •_’!! last seem to agree that Mr Albert Min.-tein is right (says a w.ntei j, ; tiw Auckland ‘Star’i. The C'ordilly I low ns expedition, which has ju-t developed its photographic plates, has a,!,led its evidence to that of previous ele.cnei-. thus placing the coping-stone 01, (!;,. new Will-Id of illusion, which - "Knee has made in Germany. "1 he only difficulty about the righti),.-- of M i Einstein, of course i . the •nil,entity of which lie has , , 1.',0r hi if there are oo definition. e,.‘! v.inty, no fixed Mandi.ru>. no abiding formulae. 1 itae is no ieoecr a -.uuioi h-llow ing stream, on bj -li I,iiniauil v th-.'.l ■ . In me go, chl-l's,-limned lavs before Miu-tcin it vva- at teily tui| cesitih* to turn nb.ml aial walk int** vest el day. Five ell. plane was the -ante as , ",.|oeU ill an the; * A. '"'"'d in an ■■ jl; was exa. tly i !:.* Mime a- a -ei end -u!!. Tii." quivers • v.a.-, « stal'le ei.iptm.-s- j ei ei l:er in which Ihe rids and lignt lolled around. Rut now it is all sadly cl anged. Si are is no long,"l a < anstani thing. Time is definite only m r,latV'i, to since and the observer. I Vople who believed thal when a sit me thrown from a iiu.n window il lotloved a ilelimte coin-c wen- sadly miseiiided. Mr Kin-fin -ay- tlu* si tie ts no fixed i onise. If it looks to lhe man in the train a- il it is droiipine mi ; ht. down, so it i-. II to the iitleimiii on the side ptiili it seems to pan.tk,* of the net ion of the train. ji j. , H i- all very convenient. t« i. iiDt him; in t lie "oi Id whu h j n..,.X not move. Tito lllitrev e i.- not fix, dm a d.i ma;; spam, hut nil position i-. therefore, relative in the moment and to speed. Size is n„ longer a fixed attrilnile. A y:>i,J Mirk riding in a train is .slimier than the same yard stick mi ih'" e-voni'd. The train eont taels according i,. its velociH . and. if one didn't tract himself, the proper place to hit a prize-lighter v.redd he upon a lasi ru:ro;:!:>ue. for there ho would he Icitost jolly at his smallest. Even tin"' shrink- with motion in the Enistoi" v.-et |d ; tlieroforo tine* intervals h-ug-TIME AND 1! EI,ATI V I TV. If man could he -ruled up in his room and shut through space at a hundred thousand mile- an hour or so. lie might mu find Dm period ol his journey |o (he uttciniost corner m me univeise more than a nmttor of a few seconds : hut il would he a -ad fact that every mile bis speed im-reased the seconds would become longer relatively to the in lev fid stationery seconds which he eii jo veil at home. Il lie let! hi- ofioe nil Fiiday morning and returned Irom a half-hour jaunt in spare, expecting R si ill t,, I e pay day, he would receive a rude -hock; for. relatively to lenvsiial sec,mds, his high-speed seconds would have become years, or more probably centuries, and he would reach home lo find the Great War forgotten', and prohaldv an accumulated salary waiting for him which would set lum up as a millionaire. It sounds an easy way to make a little money grow, lull there is more in it than that, lor, so lar are lime and space and relativity ingrained into the tiling called existence, so big a part does tlie observer play ill the new scheme "f tilings, that anybody who ran discover a menus ol g* " crating a speed greater than light t.-av 1*57.000 miles per second) will find himself equipped with the power ol being in two places at one,*—a splendid faculty for the criminal to cultivate. It is a merry world. Everything substantial lias fallen out of it under the Einstein touch. Might responds to stellar attraction, and we didn t think ii would. Trees and houses and buddings and haililts which we onK believed were deadly real, are only relatively real; and. in addition, real in n different, way to various people. Mt'flid’s propositions at, say Eller-lie may not he of the same effect in Queen .street. Work, presumably, is only relatively work. Even Mr Einstein is only a relative fact, and it may he some comfort in the coming period of extraction to he able t-.i take one s income tax assessment into a speedster and reflect on its contraction in response to natural law of motion.