The Layman’s Last Doubt

Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation by Albert Einstein, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. The Layman’s Last Doubt

The Layman’s Last Doubt

The final answer to any series of questions is inevitably “because the world is so constructed.” The things we are content to leave on that basis are those to which we are accustomed, and which we therefore think we understand; those for which this explanation leaves us unsatisfied are those which are new and unfamiliar. Newton told us that the world of three-dimensional space with one-dimensional time superposed was so constructed that bodies left to themselves would go on forever in a straight line at constant speed. We think we understand this, but our understanding consists merely of the unspoken query, “Why, of course; what is there to prevent?” [194]The Greeks, an intelligent people, looked at this differently; they would have met Newton with the unanimous demand “Why so; what is there to keep them going?” So if, in seeking an explanation of anything, we come sooner than we had expected to the finality “Because the world is so constructed,” let us not feel that we have been cheated.

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This book is part of the public domain. Albert Einstein (2020). Einstein's Theories of Relativity and Gravitation. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October 2022.

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