[5][A]
Notes
*) Especially since the next planet Venus has an orbit that is
almost an exact circle, which makes it more difficult to locate the
perihelion with precision.
The displacentent of spectral lines towards the red end of the
spectrum was definitely established by Adams in 1924, by observations
on the dense companion of Sirius, for which the effect is about thirty
times greater than for the Sun. R.W.L. -- translator
APPENDIX IV
THE STRUCTURE OF SPACE ACCORDING TO THE GENERAL THEORY OF RELATIVITY
(SUPPLEMENTARY TO SECTION 32)
Since the publication of the first edition of this little book, our
knowledge about the structure of space in the large (" cosmological
problem ") has had an important development, which ought to be
mentioned even in a popular presentation of the subject.
My original considerations on the subject were based on two
hypotheses:
(1) There exists an average density of matter in the whole of space
which is everywhere the same and different from zero.
(2) The magnitude (" radius ") of space is independent of time.
Both these hypotheses proved to be consistent, according to the
general theory of relativity, but only after a hypothetical term was
added to the field equations, a term which was not required by the
theory as such nor did it seem natural from a theoretical point of
view (" cosmological term of the field equations ").
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