IMG57

Ernst Mach

rcprescntation [of my ideas] and lcave a copy with him. I did that____"¹⁰

An undated lcttcr from Frank to Mach, but clearly also in 1910, gavc morc dctails: "I would likc to mcntion furthcr, that 1 am now working on a rcprescntation of the tlicory of relativity which is understandable to nonmathematicians, as you rccjuestcd in your lccter Hcrr Hofrat and as Hcrr Profcssor Lampa has also asked for. 1 will espccially try to represent MinkowskPs thoughts on spacc and timc in an undcrstandablc way."

Philipp Frank strongly bclicvcd not only that Mach then acceptcd F.instcin’s theory of rclativity but that it had cvcn bccn Frank*s own account and interpretation of it which the older man had adopted: "1 did that also fi.c., wrotc the book] and as a rcsult the rcprescntation of Einsteins theory, which Mach acccptcd, appeared in print." ⁿ

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Scvcral wccks carlicr, howcver. Mach had found a brief suggestion of what he thought was a vcry promising argument which in no way favorcd the pretensions of Einstein, Minkowski, Frank, or thcorctical physics. The man was TTugo Dinglcr, the book was Outlines oj a Critiąue and Exact Theory of the Sciences, Espccially Mathematies (1907), and the argument concerncd geometry and the relations of physics to sensc-rcality.

Mach immediatcly wrotc to Dingler’s publishers (March 24, 1910) in order to obtain his address and cspecially to get hołd of a copy of DinglcFs spccific treatise on geometry. On the Foundations of Ett-chdean Geometry (1907). On recciving the young authoTs address Mach wrotc to him asking for help in obtaining the work on geometry which had bccn published in the cjuite obscure Report of the Aschaflen-btirg Scientiftc Society, Vol. VI.¹-

Dinglcr replied and by April 11, 1910, Mach had rcccivcd sevcral pub-lications in the mail. Dingler’s position on geometry was furthcr clari-fied in his Litnits and Goals of Science (ujio) which Mach finished rcading during the summer of that year.¹³

Mach believed that Newtonian physics was basically sound if in-terpreted in phenomenalistie terms and if augmented by his own phcnomenalistic redefinitions of spacc, timc, motion, mass, and forcc.^H

He furthcr hele! that Newton was complctcly right in limiting himsclf to three dimensional geometry in attempting to dcscribc the threc dimensions of the extcrnal world. Nonctheless, Mach retained nagging doubts nhonr both spacc and time which hc hoped Dinglcr could put to rest.

Mach was espccially attractcd to Dinglers arguments that logical simplicity and descriptivc ccrtainty both demanćed that physics eon-fine itsclf to Euclidcan geometry. Morę than three dimensions added unncccssary logical and mathcmatical complications, falsificd naturę, and opened the door to speculativc chaos. If physicists were allowed to play with unlimited dimensions, ccrtainty would ncvcr be possiblc in physics or in the natural Sciences, and all would rcvert to fashion and subjcctivity.¹³ Dinglcr rcjcctcd Einstcin’s theory, and in a latcr articlc (1925) imagined how futurę scicntists would look back on Einstcin's approach: "Hut the theory of relativity will retain its great and lasting importance in the history of philosophy as the first concrete attempt to apply a non-Euclidean geometry to practical physics (and may this path soon be abandoned forever).” ¹⁰

Armed willi Dinglcr’s idcas, Mach rcjcctcd Einstein's theory on pre-ciscly the same grounds that Einstein used to try to persuade Mach to accept the atomie theory in physics: logical cconomy! Mach and Dingler disagreed on many things. The young mathcmatician rcjcctcd Mach's biological theory of cconomy and Mach opposcd Dinglcr*s a priorism with rcspect to logie and mathematics, but on the usc of multidimen-sional theories in physics they thought as one.¹⁷ Einstein and Min-kowski not only were wrong to introduce non-Euclidean geometry into physics, but by doing so. and glorifying theoretical physics, they were scriously compromising both the immediate futurę of physics and the ovcrall dcvclopmcnt of the natural Sciences.

Scen in this light, Machs three published refercnces to Minkowski and iwo on Einstein revcal themsclves not cven as genuinc negative praise, but simply as opposition. Just as Mach had hoped in 1906 that the dcvclopmcnt of clcctron theory would so disimegrate the atomie theory as to make elear once again the uncertain naturę of matter, space, and time, so four ycars later, Mach hoped that the speeulations of Einstein and Miukowski would so underminc the "absolute” space and time of "classical" physics as to bring about, not a new or reformed theoretical physics, but the refutation of theoretical physics itsclf, so

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