Timeline for What does Einstein mean by “mollusc” in chapter 29 of His book Relativity?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 1, 2021 at 10:40 | comment | added | Andras Deak | Completely beside your point, but many shell-less molluscs have vestigial internal shells, for instance many slugs and squids. | |
| Sep 1, 2021 at 9:24 | comment | added | Peter - Reinstate Monica | You could emphasize more (maybe it's clear to everybody, but it should be spelled out) that the motivating reason to choose this metaphor is that in general relativity space-time itself becomes malleable, deformable, like a mollusc as opposed to a the rigid space-time grid/scaffolding conceptually underlying special relativity. The "mollusc" spacetime of GR can be asymmetrically and arbitrarily stretched, pinched, compressed, twisted and otherwise deformed; ripples can run through it. It behaves like a boneless blob. The only constraint is that neighborhood is preserved. | |
| Sep 1, 2021 at 8:46 | comment | added | Selene Routley | @IMSoP Not so sure about that - the words Molluske and Weichtier are both equally living alongside one another as direct synonyms, so maybe the idea of something squidgy would be not too far from a native German reader's mind. It's quite a good word even today IMO - i think in German an even better one is the native "Weichtier". Maybe even some toy like "glob of Play-doh" or SillyPutty would be even better. | |
| Sep 1, 2021 at 8:42 | comment | added | Selene Routley | @HansOlsson Indeed. But since the German original was indeed "Molluske", i think he was thinking "Weichtier" (which gets the idea across much more directly IMO) but wanting to be a little bit literary and fancy in his writing! | |
| Sep 1, 2021 at 8:13 | comment | added | AnoE | @IMSoP yeah, they used weird words 100 years ago. A modern-day German would probably be as confused by "Bezugs-molluske" as OP by "moluscs". ;) | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 19:30 | comment | added | IMSoP | @HansOlsson I just checked, and the original was indeed in German which I thought might be significant ... but the word there is in fact "Bezugs-molluske" (Duden defines Molluske simply as "Weichtier"). | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 17:24 | comment | added | Filip Milovanović | Exactly - he's basically saying "a reference—soft bodied thing". | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 9:35 | comment | added | Hans Olsson | Just to add that in German (and similarly in some other languages) molluscs are called 'Weichtier'; meaning soft-animal - making this allusion more obvious in Einstein's native language. | |
| Aug 31, 2021 at 5:10 | history | answered | Ilmari Karonen | CC BY-SA 4.0 |