440 DOCUMENT
330
APRIL 1917
in
Bewegung zu
setzen vermöchte.
Dasselbe
entzieht sich
allerdings
durch seine
Kleinheit der
Beobachtung.
Amererseits
erzeugt
die ruhende
Hohlkugel
K eine Er-
höhung
der
Trägheit
einer
von
ihr umschlossenen
Probemasse,
die auch wieder
un-
merkbar klein
ist.[5]
...
Um
nun
das
von
einem
beschleunigten
Beobachter
wahrgenommene
Gravi-
tationsfeld
abzuleiten,
müsste
man
anstelle
der
Hohlkugel
die Gesamtheit aller die
Welt
erfüllenden
Massen
setzen,
welche
Bemühung an
unserer
Unkenntnis über
den Weltbau
im
Grossen scheitert
...
Einstein cannot take
a position
on
the
recipient’s paper, as
he is
unclear
was
man
unter
realistischer
Weltauffassung zu
verstehen
hat[6]...
Bei
der
Lektüre
philosophischer
Bücher
habe ich erfahren
müssen,
dass ich dastehe wie ein Blinder
vor
einem Gemälde. Ich
begreife
nur
die induktiv
zu
Werke
gehende
Methode
...
die Werke
der
spekulativen Philosophie
sind
mir
aber
unzugänglich
...
PTr and Facsimile
of
ALS
(Gerd
Rosen
auction
catalog
39 [5-10 November
1962],
lot
2130).
[78 637].
The lot
description on pp.
6 and 7 is
the
source
of
the
dateline and
of
the
editorial
comments;
passages
cited
from
the
original
in the
lot
description
are
the
source
of
the
first, third,
and fourth
blocks
of
text;
and the facsimile
on
the
interspersed
“Tafel II” in the auction
catalog
is the
source
of
the text
surrounding
the
two
diagrams,
which
are
also
provided
in the facsimile.
[1]Hartmann
(1874-?)
was
Professor
of
Philosophy
at the
Episcopal
Seminar for
Priests in Fulda
and co-editor
of
the
Philosophische
Jahrbücher der
Görres-Gesellschaft.
[2]Einstein
1917b
(Vol.
6,
Doc.
43),
in
which the
universe is
supposed
to
be
spatially
closed. The
paper
is
referred
to in
Hartmann
1917b.
[3]According
to Ernst Gehrcke in Gehrcke 1916,
a gravitational
field requires
the
presence
of
mass-
es.
His “absurd inference”
(“absurde Folgerung.”
Gehrcke
1916,
p. 122)
follows
from the
equivalence
principle:
if
we
first
consider
an
accelerated
system
and then
decide to
treat
it
as a system
at rest in
a
gravitational field,
this
change
of
interpretation
would
require
the sudden
appearance
of
masses
where
there
were none
before.
In
his
paper,
the
author
also
sought
to discredit
Einstein
by
claiming
that the
latter’s ideas had
been
inspired,
in
part,
by
Gerber
1898
(see
Doc.
267,
note
2).
[4]In a contemporary
paper
on general relativity
for
a philosophical
readership,
Hartmann
uses
Ein-
stein’s
argument
to address Gehrcke’s
objection, pointing
out that the different states
of
motion
of
the
gravitating
bodies in
the
two frames suffice to
explain
the
presence or
absence of
a gravitational
field
(see
Hartmann
1917b,
p.
366).
[5]Einstein
first
discussed
the
gravitational
effects
of
relative acceleration
of
a
hollow
sphere
and
a
test
particle
inside
of
it in the context
of
his 1912
theory, emphasizing
the
analogy
with
electromag-
netic induction
(see
Einstein
1912e
[Vol.
4,
Doc.
7]).
In Einstein 1913c
(Vol. 4,
Doc.
17),
p.
1261,
he
showed that the “Entwurf”
theory predicted
similar effects. A short
calculation for
the
specific
case
of
rectilinear acceleration
of
a
test
particle
with
respect
to
a
hollow
sphere
in the context
of
the “Ent-
wurf”
theory can
be found
on
[p.
38]
of
the Einstein-Besso
manuscript (Vol.
4,
Doc.
14).
The effect
that
the
mass
of
a
test
particle
increases when
other
masses
are
brought
in its
vicinity was
mentioned
in
a
number
of
places
in the context
of
the “Entwurf”
theory (see
Doc.
273,
note
6,
for
more details).
In Brans
1962,
it is shown that this is
a
coordinate
effect
(for a
discussion,
see
Torretti
1978,
p. 200).
[6]The
paper
is
presumably
Hartmann
1917a, on
the
philosophical implications
of
relativity,
in
which the author draws the conclusion that the
theory
of
relativity
is consistent with
a
“realistic world
view”
(“realistische Weltanschauung”).
Previous Page Next Page