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64
Relativity: The Special and General Theory
Albert Einstein: Relativity
Part III: Considerations on the Universe as a Whole
Part III
Considerations
on the Universe as a Whole
Cosmological Difficulties
of Netwon's Theory
Part from the difficulty discussed in Section 21, there is a second fundamental difficulty attending
classical celestial mechanics, which, to the best of my knowledge, was first discussed in detail by
the astronomer Seeliger. If we ponder over the question as to how the universe, considered as a
whole, is to be regarded, the first answer that suggests itself to us is surely this: As regards space
(and time) the universe is infinite. There are stars everywhere, so that the density of matter,
although very variable in detail, is nevertheless on the average everywhere the same. In other
words: However far we might travel through space, we should find everywhere an attenuated
swarm of fixed stars of approrimately the same kind and density.
This view is not in harmony with the theory of Newton. The latter theory rather requires that the
universe should have a kind of centre in which the density of the stars is a maximum, and that as
we proceed outwards from this centre the group?density of the stars should diminish, until finally, at
great distances, it is succeeded by an infinite region of emptiness. The stellar universe ought to be
a finite island in the infinite ocean of space.
1)
This conception is in itself not very satisfactory. It is still less satisfactory because it leads to the
result that the light emitted by the stars and also individual stars of the stellar system are
perpetually passing out into infinite space, never to return, and without ever again coming into
interaction with other objects of nature. Such a finite material universe would be destined to
become gradually but systematically impoverished.
In order to escape this dilemma, Seeliger suggested a modification of Newton's law, in which he
assumes that for great distances the force of attraction between two masses diminishes more
rapidly than would result from the inverse square law. In this way it is possible for the mean density
of matter to be constant everywhere, even to infinity, without infinitely large gravitational fields
being produced. We thus free ourselves from the distasteful conception that the material universe
ought to possess something of the nature of a centre. Of course we purchase our emancipation
from the fundamental difficulties mentioned, at the cost of a modification and complication of
Newton's law which has neither empirical nor theoretical foundation. We can imagine innumerable
laws which would serve the same purpose, without our being able to state a reason why one of
them is to be preferred to the others ; for any one of these laws would be founded just as little on
more general theoretical principles as is the law of Newton.
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