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“The term relativity refers to time and space. According to Galileo and Newton, time and space were absolute entities, and the moving systems of the universe were dependent on this absolute time and space. On this conception was built the science of mechanics. The resulting formulas sufficed for all motions of a slow nature; it was found, however, that they would not conform to the rapid motions apparent in electrodynamics.
“Till now it was believed that time and space existed by themselves, even if there was nothing else—no sun, no earth, no stars—while now we know that time and space are not the vessel for the universe, but could not exist at all if there were no contents, namely, no sun, earth and other celestial bodies.
It is often said that in non-Euclidean geometry space has a curvature, but this way of stating the matter is misleading, since it seems to imply a fourth dimension, which is not implied by these systems.
Einstein supposes that space is Euclidean where it is sufficiently remote from matter, but that the presence of matter causes it to become slightly non-Euclidean—the more matter there is in the
