Reference: The Nature of the Physical World
This paper presents Chapter 1 (sections 3) from the book THE NATURE OF THE PHYSICAL WORLD by A. S. EDDINGTON. The contents of this book are based on the lectures that Eddington delivered at the University of Edinburgh in January to March 1927.
The paragraphs of original material are accompanied by brief comments in color, based on the present understanding. Feedback on these comments is appreciated.
The heading below links to the original materials.
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Consequences of the Contraction
This result alone, although it may not quite lead you to the theory of relativity, ought to make you uneasy about classical physics. The physicist when he wishes to measure a length—and he cannot get far in any experiment without measuring a length—takes a scale and turns it in the direction needed. It never occurred to him that in spite of all precautions the scale would change length when he did this; but unless the earth happens to be at rest a change must occur. The constancy of a measuring scale is the rock on which the whole structure of physics has been reared; and that rock has crumbled away. You may think that this assumption cannot have betrayed the physicist very badly; the changes of length cannot be serious or they would have been noticed. Wait and see.
The above theory requires measurement of the speed of earth on some absolute scale, and not with respect to the sun. The sun has its own speed. Please see Absolute Motion.
Let us look at some of the consequences of the FitzGerald contraction. First take what may seem to be a rather fantastic case. Imagine you are on a planet moving very fast indeed, say 161,000 miles a second. For this speed the contraction is one-half. Any solid contracts to half its original length when turned from across to along the line of motion. A railway journey between two towns which was 100 miles at noon is shortened to 50 miles at 6 p.m. when the planet has turned through a right angle. The inhabitants copy Alice in Wonderland; they pull out and shut up like a telescope.
The assumption here is that matter can travel at this speed in absolute terms. This is not possible per the relationship of absolute motion with density.
I do not know of a planet moving at 161,000 miles a second, but I could point to a spiral nebula far away in space which is moving at 1000 miles a second. This may well contain a planet and (speaking unprofessionally) perhaps I shall not be taking too much license if I place intelligent beings on it. At 1000 miles a second the contraction is not large enough to be appreciable in ordinary affairs; but it is quite large enough to be appreciable in measurements of scientific or even of engineering accuracy. One of the most fundamental procedures in physics is to measure lengths with a scale moved about in any way. Imagine the consternation of the physicists on this planet when they learn that they have made a mistake in supposing that their scale is a constant measure of length. What a business to go back over all the experiments ever performed, apply the corrections for orientation of the scale at the time, and then consider de novo the inferences and system of physical laws to be deduced from the amended data! How thankful our own physicists ought to be that they are not in this runaway nebula but on a decently slow-moving planet like the earth!
The speed of 1000 miles per second is relative and not absolute, whereas, the speed of light being considered is absolute. This is mixing apples with oranges.
But stay a moment. Is it so certain that we are on a slow-moving planet? I can imagine the astronomers in that nebula observing far away in space an insignificant star attended by an insignificant planet called Earth. They observe too that it is moving with the huge velocity of 1000 miles a second; because naturally if we see them receding from us at 1000 miles a second they will see us receding from them at 1000 miles a second. “A thousand miles a second!” exclaim the nebular physicists, “How unfortunate for the poor physicists on the Earth! The FitzGerald contraction will be quite appreciable, and all their measures with scales will be seriously wrong. What a weird system of laws of Nature they will have deduced, if they have overlooked this correction!”
The significance of contraction applies either to absolute speed or to acceleration. It does not apply to relative speed.
There is no means of deciding which is right—to which of us the observed relative velocity of 1000 miles a second really belongs. Astronomically the galaxy of which the earth is a member does not seem to be more important, more central, than the nebula. The presumption that it is we who are the more nearly at rest has no serious foundation; it is mere self-flattery.
Use of relative speed in physics leads to many contradictions.
“But”, you will say, “surely if these appreciable changes of length occurred on the earth, we should detect them by our measurements.” That brings me to the interesting point. We could not detect them by any measurement; they may occur and yet pass quite unnoticed. Let me try to show how this happens.
This room, we will say, is travelling at 161,000 miles a second vertically upwards. That is my statement, and it is up to you to prove it wrong. I turn my arm from horizontal to vertical and it contracts to half its original length. You don’t believe me? Then bring a yard-measure and measure it. First, horizontally, the result is 30 inches; now vertically, the result is 30 half-inches. You must allow for the fact that an inch-division of the scale contracts to half an inch when the yard-measure is turned vertically.
“But we can see that your arm does not become shorter; can we not trust our own eyes?”
Certainly not, unless you remember that when you got up this morning your retina contracted to half its original width in the vertical direction; consequently it is now exaggerating vertical distances to twice the scale of horizontal distances.
“Very well”, you reply, “I will not get up. I will lie in bed and watch you go through your performance in an inclined mirror. Then my retina will be all right, but I know I shall still see no contraction.”
The above is just a circular argument based on speculation. It is not physics.
But a moving mirror does not give an undistorted image of what is happening. The angle of reflection of light is altered by motion of a mirror, just as the angle of reflection of a billiard-ball would be altered if the cushion were moving. If you will work out by the ordinary laws of optics the effect of moving a mirror at 161,000 miles a second, you will find that it introduces a distortion which just conceals the contraction of my arm.
And so on for every proposed test. You cannot disprove my assertion, and, of course, I cannot prove it; I might equally well have chosen and defended any other velocity. At first this seems to contradict what I told you earlier—that the contraction had been proved and measured by the Michelson-Morley and other experiments—but there is really no contradiction. They were all null experiments, just as your experiment of watching my arm in an inclined mirror was a null experiment. Certain optical or electrical consequences of the earth’s motion were looked for of the same type as the distortion of images by a moving mirror; these would have been observed unless a contraction occurred of just the right amount to compensate them. They were not observed; therefore the compensating contraction had occurred. There was just one alternative; the earth’s true velocity through space might happen to have been nil. This was ruled out by repeating the experiment six months later, since the earth’s motion could not be nil on both occasions. Thus the contraction was demonstrated and its law of dependence on velocity verified. But the actual amount of contraction on either occasion was unknown, since the earth’s true velocity (as distinct from its orbital velocity with respect to the sun) was unknown. It remains unknown because the optical and electrical effects by which we might hope to measure it are always compensated by the contraction.
The error is using relative velocity of earth against absolute velocity of light. If the absolute velocity of earth is used, there will be a contraction, but it would be extremely small and imperceptible.
I have said that the constancy of a measuring scale is the rock on which the structure of physics has been reared. The structure has also been supported by supplementary props because optical and electrical devices can often be used instead of material scales to ascertain lengths and distances. But we find that all these are united in a conspiracy not to give one another away. The rock has crumbled and simultaneously all the other supports have collapsed.
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FINAL COMMENTS
The densities in the material universe are pretty uniform, and so are the absolute velocities of different bodies. These absolute velocities are infinitesimal compared to the absolue velocity of light. Therefore, length contraction, if any, does not vary from one material body to another, and it is not an issue.
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