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148
COSMOLOGY OLD AND NEW
However, leaving aside the mathematical aspect of the theory, its gist, in the words of Einstein himself, quoted by Mr. Boltonan Englishman who won the Scientific American prize for the best expositon of relativity, is as follows: "Relativity as a whole is the theory of the statement of general physical laws in forms common to all observers." The same writer continues to say "It is something of a puzzle why other writers of authority have not given this fact a more prominent place and stated it plainly and explicitly. It may have been because it seemed so obvious as not to require emphasis, but to the writer's mind the greater part of the mystery, which has surrounded the subject, has arisen through failure to grasp it. It was certainly so in his own case. When he realized it, the whole subject till then a hopeless jig-saw puzzle, seemed to arrange itself of its own
accord."
He adds further on that "relativity describes... the fact that the old laws of physics were not universally true; they were true only in the limited sphere of inaccurate observation; they were merely relative. What the mathematicians have done is to derive formulas which shall be universally true for all conditions of space and matter and motion."
Let us examine the expression "general physical laws in forms common to all observers," and the terms 'true' and 'universally true' in greater detail.
On pages 27-28 we have quoted an experiment of a man in a lift, falling freely in space and dropping an apple. There we have seen that for the man in the lift the force of gravitation does not exist while for the man on the street it does. In other words, one thing is true with respect to one observer and not true with respect to the other, since they observe it under different conditions. The theory of relativity attempts to express natural phenomena in terms of such mathematical formulae that they may hold universally, i.e., under all conditions. The mathematical language adopted by Einstein is analogous to the avaktavyam of the syadvāda philosophy. For instance, Einstein's law of gravitation asserts that 'the ten principal co-efficients of curvature are zero in empty space.' Can this law be expressed in a language understandable? The plain answer is No. It is indescribable in common parlance, i.e.,... avaktavya. However when this law is analysed into its various aspects it gives all the results of common experience.
The language of mathematics is undoubtedly the most exact but the difficulty with it is that it cannot be translated into
