SIDELIGHTS ON RELATIVITY

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GEOMETRY AND EXPERIENCE

An expanded form of an Address to the Prussian Academy of Sciences
in Berlin on January 27th, 1921.



One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other
sciences, is that its laws are absolutely certain and indisputable,
while those of all other sciences are to some extent debatable and
in constant danger of being overthrown by newly discovered facts.
In spite of this, the investigator in another department of science
would not need to envy the mathematician if the laws of mathematics
referred to objects of our mere imagination, and not to objects
of reality. For it cannot occasion surprise that different persons
should arrive at the same logical conclusions when they have already
agreed upon the fundamental laws (axioms), as well as the methods