We can regard Minkowski's "
world " in a formal manner as a four-dimensional Euclidean space (with
an imaginary time coordinate) ; the Lorentz transformation corresponds
to a " rotation " of the co-ordinate system in the fourdimensional "
world."
APPENDIX III
THE EXPERIMENTAL CONFIRMATION OF THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
From a systematic theoretical point of view, we may imagine the
process of evolution of an empirical science to be a continuous
process of induction. Theories are evolved and are expressed in short
compass as statements of a large number of individual observations in
the form of empirical laws, from which the general laws can be
ascertained by comparison. Regarded in this way, the development of a
science bears some resemblance to the compilation of a classified
catalogue. It is, as it were, a purely empirical enterprise.
But this point of view by no means embraces the whole of the actual
process ; for it slurs over the important part played by intuition and
deductive thought in the development of an exact science. As soon as a
science has emerged from its initial stages, theoretical advances are
no longer achieved merely by a process of arrangement.
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