Abstract
I CAN understand a good deal of H. D.'s courteous reply to my letter (NATURE, Nov. 24, p. 808), for example, that there are degrees in understanding. But much remains as to which I should like information. I know I am ignorant, but since my state of mind is almost universally representative, it is important. Is knowledge of the fact that clocks in rapid relative motion do not keep time derived from abstruse calculation, or from actual observation? If the latter, is there any explanation of that which seems to the ordinary man unaccountable? I assume that the swing of the pendulum of the clock in motion is not disturbed by its speed, or by a changing pull of gravity; for such alteration would be due to simple mechanical causes, easily explainable, and not due to what I suppose is meant by relativity—a mystical conception which appears to result in contradictions.
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REID, G. The Understanding of Relativity. Nature 122, 995–996 (1928). https://doi.org/10.1038/122995b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/122995b0
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