The Laws of Nature

Abstract

MR. JESSUP'S letter raises what, I think, is a fundamental point concerning the significance of relativity theory. In adopting that theory, we do not assume that "no subsequent developments will ever point to the probability of some spatio-temporal particularization of the framework of the universe". We simply regard scientific theory as a description of the world apprehended by experience (more exactly, the correlation of experiences themselves), and require that it shall not include features for which experience offers no evidence. For that reason we regard a theory which includes the existence of absolute velocity as invalid. If future experience should enable us to detect absolute velocity, or even "leave us only the possibility of inferring its existence from some otherwise inexplicable phenomenon", the situation would be altered, and the same principle would then require us to include it in our description. In brief, scientific theory should be, so far as possible, conterminous with experience.