SPACE IN THE BODLEIAN
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,-0 quantum eel subilis casibus ingenium ! Martial's witty line recurred to me, when my eye fell on the above heading to a letter, in The Times of July 27th, from my old friend the Curator of the Bodleian Library : who has quite unintentionally presented to us all a beautiful instantia crucis. He knows only too well, as his readers do also, exactly what he means by space. He wants room. Here, then, is a glorious oppor- tunity for the partizans of relativity. We can picture a deputation, composed, say, of Professor Albert Einstein, Sir James Jeans, Mr. Bertrand Russell, and Sir Arthur Eddington, waiting upon the Curator, and casting light into his darkness. Professor Einstein will observe, "We entirely spurn the vague word 'space,' of which, we must honestly acknowledge, we cannot form the slightest conception, and we replace it by 'motion relative to a practically rigid body of reference.'" Sir James Jeans will point out the (most convenient) property that space has of expanding. Mr. Bertrand Russell will add, that "when people said that space had three dimensions, they meant just this, that three quantities were necessary in order to specify the position of a point in space." And Sir Arthur Eddington will explain that a book laid in one direction will be only half as long, laid in another. At this the Curator will rise and bow, remarking, in that quiet voice of his, that he has unfortunately to remind the deputation that the time of a harassed Curator is as important, in another way, as his space, and must ask them, kindly, to close the door behind them as they go out. Once outside, the deputation will probably decide among themselves that space in the Bodleian is a distinct and different thing from any of those new and peculiar spaces familiar to mathematical thinkers of the first order : something archaic, Euclidean. Why, it does not expand, it does not curve, it is not even "motion relative to a rigid body of reference." Something behind the times !
Juclex damnatur, cum nocens absolvitur. Was there really not one man in Christ Church sufficiently at home in philosophy and logic to discern the truth, glaring as it is, that the whole of the relativity rubbish is founded on the crazy delusions of half-witted Germans, such as Riemann, whose speculations
are out of touch with reality Grant one absurdity, said Aristotle, and the rest follow. Einstein is one of the rest. And we think time will show that, in idolizing Einstein, the authorities of that fine old institution, "the House," were— shall we euphemistically say—premature ?—I am, Sir, &c.,
F. W. BAIN.
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