Das Relativitätsprinzip; die jüngste Modenarrheit der Wissenschaft

Abstract

THE satire as a means of propaganda for scientific ideas is not of modern usage. Fechner was probably one of the last scientific satirists. Its revival in the present instance is the result of the considerable amount of mystification to which the electromagnetic principle of relativity established by Lorentz, Einstein, and Minkowski has given rise. The description of this principle as “the latest fashionable craze in science” is rather cutting, but as the book is well written and easily read, we Can imagine that it will increase rather than lessen the general interest in the work of those eminent theoretical physicists. That the more extravagant conclusions resulting from the extreme adaptations of the principle should be held up to ridicule is quite wholesome, as it reveals the weak points in the argument and prevents the unwary from carrying it too far.

Das Relativitätsprinzip; die jüngste Modenarrheit der Wissenschaft.

By Leo Gilbert. Pp. 124. Wissenschaftliche Satyren. Band I. (Brackwede i. W: Dr. W. Breitenbach, 1914.) Price 3 marks.