SCIENCE AND THE TJNOBSERVABLE — DINGLE 221 



The idea is that if we were free to move about in space eternally, 

 wherever nature led, we would always find ourselves apparently in the 

 midst of a collection of stars or nebulae, though we could not forever 

 be meeting new objects, but would have to endure the tedium of see- 

 ing the old familiar faces endlessly, without relief. like our former 

 example, this idea, in its modern form, originated with Einstein; let 

 us see how it has impressed his contemporaries. Sir Arthur Edding- 

 ton, who thinks very highly of it, writes thus: 



Einstein made a slight amendment to his law to meet certain difficulties that 

 he encountered in his theory. There was just one place where the theory did not 

 seem to work properly, and that was — infinity. I think Einstein showed his 

 greatness in the simple and drastic way in which he disposed of difficulties at 

 infinity. He abolished infinity. He slightly altered his equations so as to make 

 space at great distances bend round until it closed up. 9 



On the other hand, here is the stimulating Mr. Eagle again. 



I fancy Einstein is honestly a bit tired and weary of "curved space," and is 

 probably a bit sorry he ever suggested such a thing. But he did not know with 

 what zeal other people would take it up and make a world-wide fuss about it. 

 In pre-Einsteinian days if people had been told that an author's theme in his 

 book had been that external reality only possessed three spatial dimensions, and 

 that therefore to talk of "curved three dimensional space" was pure nonsense, 

 they would have replied that they thought only lunatics thought otherwise. 

 Now this conception is widely regarded in many circles as a "probably may be 

 true" one. This, to me, seems the measure to which both the scientific world and 

 the general public have been bluffed by the theory. Future scientific historians 

 will probably regard the theory as a befitting product of a mad age in the world's 

 history. 10 



Prof. E. A. Milne is scarcely less contemptuous of this manifestation 

 of Einstein's greatness. 



It is not necessary to employ the vague, ill-understood, probably meaningless 

 concept of closed, finite expanding space. 11 



Well, the symptoms are familiar. Again we have the alternative 

 estimates of supreme greatness and supreme folly, and we might 

 suspect that the same j misunderstanding is at the bottom of the 

 trouble — as, in fact, it is. Let us begin with a finite collection of 

 stars (or nebulae) in a space which we suppose extends to infinity in 

 all directions (fig. 1) ; we are somewhere in the midst of the collection — 

 say at A. Now suppose we try to get outside into the empty spaces. 

 We cannot, because the gravitation of the system keeps all material 

 bodies inside; the faster we move, the greater is the attraction, and 

 we find ourselves following some such path as that shown in the 

 diagram. It is the same with light; that also is drawn back, and 

 cannot illuminate whatever external objects there may be. In fact 



8 The expanding universe, p. 21, 1933. 



10 The philosophy of religion versus the philosophy of science, pp. 219-20. 



11 Zeits. f. Astrophysik, vol. 6, p. 83, 1933. 



