The Rudiments of Relativity Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the University College, Johannesburg, Scientific Society

Excerpt from The Rudiments of Relativity: Lectures Delivered Under the Auspices of the University College, Johannesburg, Scientific Society The following pages contain four lectures which were prepared as a Presidential address to the Scientific Society of this College. Although their preparation entailed a considerable amount of labour I regarded it as a normal incident of academic life, and had no intention of publishing my views. Many of my colleagues, hearing of the topic proposed for discussion, expressed a desire to be present, and the Council of the Scientific Society accordingly decided to throw the lectures open to the public. The response to that invitation was astonishing and stimulating; it showed that even in what is regarded (quite unjustly, I think) as a very frivolous and material centre there is a widespread desire for intellectual stimulus. Various members of that audience have asked me to publish my lectures; I therefore print them now substantially as delivered, although I should have preferred a less crude and incomplete form of presentation. It will be borne in mind, I trust, that I was primarily addressing students whose scientific knowledge and reading could hardly be called extensive; it was therefore essential that I should divest the theory of its customary mathematical elegance, and present instead its physical basis and implications. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.