THEORY OF RELATIVITY W. PAULI Translated from the German by G. FIELD With Supplementary Notes by the Author PERGAMON PRESS LONDON - NEW YORK : PARIS * LOS ANGELES 1958PERGAMON PRESS LTD. 4.& 5 Fitzroy Square, London W.1. PERGAMON PRESS INC. 122 East 55th Street, New York 22, N.Y. P.O. Box 47715, Los Angeles, California, PERGAMON PRESS S.A.R.L. 24 Rue des Ecoles, Paris Ve ‘Translated from the article “ Relativititstheorie" in Encyklopaidie der mathematischen Wissenschaften, Vol. V19, (B. G. Teubner, Leipzig 1921). Sole authorized English translation of the original Germatr edition by permission of the B. G. Teubner Publishing House, Stuttgart. Copyright © 1958 PeROAMON Press Lrp, Library of Congress Card Number 58-7692 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY J, W. ARROWSMITH LTD., BRISTOLPREFACE ‘Twmry-rive years ago this article on the theory of relativity, written by me at the rather young age of 21 years for the Mathematical Sncyclo- pedia, was first published as a separate monograph together with a preface by Sommerfeld, who as the editor of this volume of the Encyclopedia was responsible for my authorship. It was the aim of the article to give a complete review of the whole literature on relativity theory existing at that time (1921). Meanwhile, the production of textbooks, reports and papers on the theory of relativity has grown into a flood, which rose anew at the 50th Anniversary of the first papers of Einstein on relativity, in the same year 1955 in which all physicists were mourning his death. In this situation any idea of completeness regarding the now existing literature in a revised new edition of the book had to be given up from the beginning. I decided therefore, in order to preserve the character of the book as an historical document, to reprint the old text in its original form, but to add a number of notes at the end of the book, which refer to certain passages of the text. These notes give to the reader selected infor- mation about the later developments connected with relativity theory and also my personal views upon some controversial questions. Especially in the’ last of these notes on unified field theories, I do not conceal to the reader my scepticism concerning all attempts of this kind which have been made until now, and also about the future chances of success of theories with such aims. These’ questions are closely connected with the problem of the range validity of the classical field concept in its application to the atomic features of Nature. The critical view, which I uttered in the last section of the original text with respect to any solution on these classical lines, has since been very much deepened by the epistemo- logical analysis of quantum mechanics, or wave mechanics, which was formulated in 1927. On the other hand Einstein maintained the hope for 3 total solution on the lines of a classical field theory until the end of his life. These differences of opinion are merging into the great open problem of the relation of relativity theory to quantum. theory, which will pre- sumably occupy physicists for a long while to come. In particular, a clear eonnection between the general theory of relativity and quantum mech- anics is not yet in sight. Just, because I emphasize in the last of the notes a certain contrast between the views on problems beyond the original frame of special and general relativity held by Einstein himself on the one hand, and by most of the physicists, including myself, on the other, I wish to conclude this preface with some conciliatory remarks on the position of relativity theory in the development of physics. There is a point of view according to which relativity thBory is the end-point of “classical physics”, which means physics in the style of Newton-Faraday-Maxwell, governed by the “deterministic” form of