The “Contraction” Hypothesis

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The “Contraction” Hypothesis

[Numerous efforts were made to explain the contradiction.]* [It is indeed a very puzzling one, and it gave physicists no end of trouble. However Lorentz and Fitzgerald finally put forward an ingenious explanation, to the effect that the actual motion of the earth through the ether is balanced, as far [66]as the ability of our measuring instruments is concerned, by a contraction of these same instruments in the direction of their motion. This contraction obviously cannot be observed directly because all bodies, including the measuring instruments themselves (which after all are only arbitrary guides), will suffer the contraction equally. According to this theory, called the Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction theory,]272 [all bodies in motion suffer such contraction of their length in the direction of their motion;]283 [the contraction being made evident by our inability to observe the absolute motion of the earth, which it is assumed must exist.]272 [This would suffice to show why the Michelson-Morley experiment gave a negative result, and would preserve the concept of absolute motion with reference to the ether.]283

[This proposal of Lorentz and Fitzgerald loses its startling aspect when we consider that all matter appears to be an electrical structure, and that the dimensions of the electric and magnetic fields which accompany the electrons of which it is constituted change with the velocity of motion.]267 [The forces of cohesion which determine the form of a rigid body are held to be electromagnetic in nature; the contraction may be regarded as due to a change in the electromagnetic forces between the molecules.]10 [As one writer has put it, the orientation, in the electromagnetic medium, of a body depending for its very existence upon electromagnetic forces is not necessarily a matter of indifference.]*

[Granting the plausibility of all this, on the basis of an electromagnetic theory of matter, it leaves us [67]in an unsatisfactory position. We are left with a fixed ether with reference to which absolute motion has a meaning, but that motion remains undetected and apparently undetectable. Further, if we on shore measure the length of a moving ship, using a yard-stick which is stationary on shore, we shall obtain one result. If we take our stick aboard it contracts, and so we obtain a greater length for the ship. Not knowing our “real” motion through the ether, we cannot say which is the “true” length. Is it not, then, more satisfactory to discard all notion of true length as an inherent quality of bodies, and, by regarding length as the measure of a relation between a particular object and a particular observer, to make one length as true as the other?]182 [The opponents of such a viewpoint contend that Michelson’s result was due to a fluke; some mysterious counterbalancing influence was for some reason at work, concealing the result which should normally have been expected. Einstein refuses to accept this explanation;]192 [he refuses to believe that all nature is in a contemptible conspiracy to delude us.]*

[The Fitzgerald suggestion is further unsatisfactory because it assumes all substances, of whatever density, to undergo the same contraction; and above all for the reason that it sheds no light upon other phenomena.]194 [It is indeed a very special explanation; that is, it applies only to the particular experiment in question. And indeed it is only one of many possible explanations. Einstein conceived the notion that it might be infinitely more valuable to take the most general explanation possible, and then try to find from this its logical consequences. This “most [68]general explanation” is, of course, simply that it is impossible in any way whatever to measure the absolute motion of a body in space.]272 [Accordingly Einstein enunciated, first the Special Theory of Relativity, and later the General Theory of Relativity. The special theory was so called because it was, limited to uniform rectilinear and non-rotary motions. The general theory, on the other hand, dealt not only with uniform rectilinear motions, but with any arbitrary motion whatever.

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