Electricity-Gravity

Science has been taking slow, groping steps toward a common explanation for all physical phenomena. James Clerk Maxwell (1831-79), father of the trend, stated that electricity and magnetism were nearly the same thing. Step by step interrelations have been discovered between electricity, magnetism, light, gravity. The general tendency is to reduce the universe to one of wave phenomena.

Little over a year ago Albert Einstein announced his field theory, asserting a definite relationship between electricity and gravity; asserting that they are interrelated to the extent that they are expressible by common equations. To the world he gave out the root formulae of his invention, called field equations (TIME, Feb. 18, 1929).

Great was the reception granted this announcement. Few, however, were those who understood it, ever dreamed of understanding it. After the glamorous reception, flaws began to appear in Dr. Einstein's mother equations, their accuracy was challenged. Once again grizzled Einstein retired to his iron-doored garret room and set to work with a colleague. Dr. W. Mayer, on the revision and proof of his formulae.

Last week he came out, announced to the world in general and the Prussian Academy of Sciences in particular that he had revised his original work, had gone one step further, had solved his field equations for a definite set of physical facts.

In the development of a natural law two steps are necessary: 1) Statement of the law; 2) Application of the law to specific problems. Thus, almost anyone can make a statement so long as it does not contradict accepted laws. The difficulty is encountered in proving it.

Last week's despatches from Berlin indicated that Herr Einstein had satisfactorily surmounted the difficulty; solved his field equations for two specific cases, proved his assumption. In the first case he selected an imaginary charged sphere to apply his formulae to, in the second a number of isolated charged points in space. Both conditions are actually represented in the universe. From the first the relationship between gravity and electricity on Earth may be determined, from the second the electro-gravitational relation of Earth to the universe.

In applying Case 1 to Earth it is necessary to alter the globe to some extent. We must imagine it a perfect sphere, devoid of any flattening at the poles, devoid of hills, dales. On such a sphere the gravitational pull at any two points equidistant from the surface is equal. If we further assume that this sphere is a charged body the electrical forces will everywhere be symmetrical. These conditions exist approximately on Earth. To such a sphere and to the two pairs of forces acting on it the parent field equations of Einstein were applied, found to bear out his predicted relationship between electricity and gravity.

The second solution of the formulae is in the nature of a confirmation of the first.

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