In accepting the degree of Doctor of Science conferred on him by the University of Manchester yesterday, Professor ALBERT EINSTEIN conferred a signal honour on Manchester and its University. The compliment was no vain one on either side, for the University of Manchester claims high distinction in the scientific field, and Professor EINSTEIN’S visit is in itself a very distinct recognition of the University as a home of science.
EINSTEIN himself has become, with amazing rapidity, the hero not only of the scientist and the scholar, but also of the populace. The reason is not hard to seek. The man in the street, a traveller between life and death, is compact of all elements, and is neither wholly devoid of science nor of poetry. He may have few ideas in either, but he probably cherishes what he has, and whatever touches them nearly is of moment to him.
Professor EINSTEIN’S theory of Relativity, however vaguely he may comprehend it, disturbs fundamentally his basic conceptions of the universe and even of his own mind. It challenges somehow the absolute nature of his thought. The very idea that he can use his mind in a disinterested way is assailed by a conception which gives partiality to every perception. And with this keen thrust at personal things, the idea of Relativity stretches out to the very conceptions of the universe, as can be seen from the mere titles of the closing chapters in Professor EINSTEIN’S little book on the subject.
Definite ideas emerge, even, on the shape of the universe itself, and the finite and the infinite are made to lie down comfortably together by deductions from the relativity of our daily observations. Everything, it has been said, assimilates to the nature of music. Professor EINSTEIN is a musician in his leisure moments, and his science seems to bear some relation to that art, in which everything is thought of in terms of movement and relation, and the fixed only as something arbitrary.
