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42
SPECIAL AND GENERAL RELATIVITY
Preface
The
present
book
is intended,
as
far
as
possible, to give
an
exact insight
into the
theory
of
Relativity to
those readers
who,
from
a
general
scientific and
philosophical point
of
view,
are
interested
in
the
theory,
but who
are
not
conversant
with
the mathematical
apparatus
of theoretical
physics.
The work
presumes
a
standard of education
corresponding
to
that
of
a
university
matriculation
examination, and,
despite
the short-
ness
of the
book,
a
fair
amount
of
patience
and
force
of
will
on
the
part
of the reader.
The
author
has
spared
himself
no
pains
in his
endeavour
to
present
the main ideas
in
the
simplest
and
most intelligible form,
and
on
the
whole, in
the
sequence
and
connection in which
they actually originated.
In the interest of
clearness,
it
appeared to
me
inevitable
that
I
should
repeat
myself frequently,
without
paying
the
slightest
attention
to
the
elegance
of the
presentation. I
adhered
scrupulously to
the
precept
of
that brilliant theoretical
physicist
L.
Boltzmann,
according
to
whom
matters
of
elegance ought to
be left
to
the
tailor and
to
the cobbler.
I
make
no
pretence
of
having
with-
held
from
the reader diffculties which
are
inherent
to
the
subject.
On the other
hand, I
have
purposely
treated the
em-
pirical
physical
foundations of the
theory
in
a
"step-motherly"
fashion,
so
that
readers unfamiliar with
physics may
not
feel
like the wanderer who
was
unable
to
see
the forest
for
trees.
May
the book
bring
some one a
few
happy
hours of
suggestive
thought!
[4]
December
1916
A.
EINSTEIN