The Foundations of Science: Science and Hypothesis, The Value of Science Science and Method Part 13

The notion of these ideal solids is drawn from all parts of our mind, and experience is only an occasion which induces us to bring it forth from them.

The object of geometry is the study of a particular 'group'; but the general group concept pre-exists, at least potentially, in our minds. It is imposed on us, not as form of our sense, but as form of our understanding.

Only, from among all the possible groups, that must be chosen which will be, so to speak, the _standard_ to which we shall refer natural phenomena.

Experience guides us in this choice without forcing it upon us; it tells us not which is the truest geometry, but which is the most _convenient_.

Notice that I have been able to describe the fantastic worlds above imagined _without ceasing to employ the language of ordinary geometry_.

And, in fact, we should not have to change it if transported thither.

Beings educated there would doubtless find it more convenient to create a geometry different from ours, and better adapted to their impressions.

As for us, in face of the _same_ impressions, it is certain we should find it more convenient not to change our habits.

CHAPTER V

EXPERIENCE AND GEOMETRY

1. Already in the preceding pages I have several times tried to show that the principles of geometry are not experimental facts and that in particular Euclid's postulate can not be proven experimentally.

However decisive appear to me the reasons already given, I believe I should emphasize this point because here a false idea is profoundly rooted in many minds.

2. If we construct a material circle, measure its radius and circ.u.mference, and see if the ratio of these two lengths is equal to [pi], what shall we have done? We shall have made an experiment on the properties of the matter with which we constructed this _round thing_, and of that of which the measure used was made.

3. GEOMETRY AND ASTRONOMY.--The question has also been put in another way. If Lobachevski's geometry is true, the parallax of a very distant star will be finite; if Riemann's is true, it will be negative. These are results which seem within the reach of experiment, and there have been hopes that astronomical observations might enable us to decide between the three geometries.

But in astronomy 'straight line' means simply 'path of a ray of light.'

If therefore negative parallaxes were found, or if it were demonstrated that all parallaxes are superior to a certain limit, two courses would be open to us; we might either renounce Euclidean geometry, or else modify the laws of optics and suppose that light does not travel rigorously in a straight line.

It is needless to add that all the world would regard the latter solution as the more advantageous.

The Euclidean geometry has, therefore, nothing to fear from fresh experiments.

4. Is the position tenable, that certain phenomena, possible in Euclidean s.p.a.ce, would be impossible in non-Euclidean s.p.a.ce, so that experience, in establis.h.i.+ng these phenomena, would directly contradict the non-Euclidean hypothesis? For my part I think no such question can be put. To my mind it is precisely equivalent to the following, whose absurdity is patent to all eyes: are there lengths expressible in meters and centimeters, but which can not be measured in fathoms, feet and inches, so that experience, in ascertaining the existence of these lengths, would directly contradict the hypothesis that there are fathoms divided into six feet?

Examine the question more closely. I suppose that the straight line possesses in Euclidean s.p.a.ce any two properties which I shall call _A_ and _B_; that in non-Euclidean s.p.a.ce it still possesses the property _A_, but no longer has the property _B_; finally I suppose that in both Euclidean and non-Euclidean s.p.a.ce the straight line is the only line having the property _A_.

If this were so, experience would be capable of deciding between the hypothesis of Euclid and that of Lobachevski. It would be ascertained that a definite concrete object, accessible to experiment, for example, a pencil of rays of light, possesses the property _A_; we should conclude that it is rectilinear, and then investigate whether or not it has the property _B_.

But _this is not so_; no property exists which, like this property _A_, can be an absolute criterion enabling us to recognize the straight line and to distinguish it from every other line.

Shall we say, for instance: "the following is such a property: the straight line is a line such that a figure of which this line forms a part can be moved without the mutual distances of its points varying and so that all points of this line remain fixed"?

This, in fact, is a property which, in Euclidean or non-Euclidean s.p.a.ce, belongs to the straight and belongs only to it. But how shall we ascertain experimentally whether it belongs to this or that concrete object? It will be necessary to measure distances, and how shall one know that any concrete magnitude which I have measured with my material instrument really represents the abstract distance?

We have only pushed back the difficulty.

In reality the property just enunciated is not a property of the straight line alone, it is a property of the straight line and distance. For it to serve as absolute criterion, we should have to be able to establish not only that it does not also belong to a line other than the straight and to distance, but in addition that it does not belong to a line other than the straight and to a magnitude other than distance. Now this is not true.

It is therefore impossible to imagine a concrete experiment which can be interpreted in the Euclidean system and not in the Lobachevskian system, so that I may conclude:

No experience will ever be in contradiction to Euclid's postulate; nor, on the other hand, will any experience ever contradict the postulate of Lobachevski.

5. But it is not enough that the Euclidean (or non-Euclidean) geometry can never be directly contradicted by experience. Might it not happen that it can accord with experience only by violating the principle of sufficient reason or that of the relativity of s.p.a.ce?

I will explain myself: consider any material system; we shall have to regard, on the one hand, 'the state' of the various bodies of this system (for instance, their temperature, their electric potential, etc.), and, on the other hand, their position in s.p.a.ce; and among the data which enable us to define this position we shall, moreover, distinguish the mutual distances of these bodies, which define their relative positions, from the conditions which define the absolute position of the system and its absolute orientation in s.p.a.ce.

The laws of the phenomena which will happen in this system will depend on the state of these bodies and their mutual distances; but, because of the relativity and pa.s.sivity of s.p.a.ce, they will not depend on the absolute position and orientation of the system.

In other words, the state of the bodies and their mutual distances at any instant will depend solely on the state of these same bodies and on their mutual distances at the initial instant, but will not at all depend on the absolute initial position of the system or on its absolute initial orientation. This is what for brevity I shall call the _law of relativity_.

Hitherto I have spoken as a Euclidean geometer. As I have said, an experience, whatever it be, admits of an interpretation on the Euclidean hypothesis; but it admits of one equally on the non-Euclidean hypothesis. Well, we have made a series of experiments; we have interpreted them on the Euclidean hypothesis, and we have recognized that these experiments thus interpreted do not violate this 'law of relativity.'

We now interpret them on the non-Euclidean hypothesis: this is always possible; only the non-Euclidean distances of our different bodies in this new interpretation will not generally be the same as the Euclidean distances in the primitive interpretation.

Will our experiments, interpreted in this new manner, still be in accord with our 'law of relativity'? And if there were not this accord, should we not have also the right to say experience had proven the falsity of the non-Euclidean geometry?

It is easy to see that this is an idle fear; in fact, to apply the law of relativity in all rigor, it must be applied to the entire universe.

For if only a part of this universe were considered, and if the absolute position of this part happened to vary, the distances to the other bodies of the universe would likewise vary, their influence on the part of the universe considered would consequently augment or diminish, which might modify the laws of the phenomena happening there.

But if our system is the entire universe, experience is powerless to give information about its absolute position and orientation in s.p.a.ce.

All that our instruments, however perfected they may be, can tell us will be the state of the various parts of the universe and their mutual distances.

So our law of relativity may be thus enunciated:

The readings we shall be able to make on our instruments at any instant will depend only on the readings we could have made on these same instruments at the initial instant.

Now such an enunciation is independent of every interpretation of experimental facts. If the law is true in the Euclidean interpretation, it will also be true in the non-Euclidean interpretation.

Allow me here a short digression. I have spoken above of the data which define the position of the various bodies of the system; I should likewise have spoken of those which define their velocities; I should then have had to distinguish the velocities with which the mutual distances of the different bodies vary; and, on the other hand, the velocities of translation and rotation of the system, that is to say, the velocities with which its absolute position and orientation vary.

To fully satisfy the mind, the law of relativity should be expressible thus:

The state of bodies and their mutual distances at any instant, as well as the velocities with which these distances vary at this same instant, will depend only on the state of those bodies and their mutual distances at the initial instant, and the velocities with which these distances vary at this initial instant, but they will not depend either upon the absolute initial position of the system, or upon its absolute orientation, or upon the velocities with which this absolute position and orientation varied at the initial instant.

Unhappily the law thus enunciated is not in accord with experiments, at least as they are ordinarily interpreted.

Suppose a man be transported to a planet whose heavens were always covered with a thick curtain of clouds, so that he could never see the other stars; on that planet he would live as if it were isolated in s.p.a.ce. Yet this man could become aware that it turned, either by measuring its oblateness (done ordinarily by the aid of astronomic observations, but capable of being done by purely geodetic means), or by repeating the experiment of Foucault's pendulum. The absolute rotation of this planet could therefore be made evident.

That is a fact which shocks the philosopher, but which the physicist is compelled to accept.

We know that from this fact Newton inferred the existence of absolute s.p.a.ce; I myself am quite unable to adopt this view. I shall explain why in Part III. For the moment it is not my intention to enter upon this difficulty.