Abstract
I AM in general agreement with the content of Dr. Camm's letter. The fact which he independently arrives at, that the energy integral in the problem of two bodies (or indeed, of any number of particles) is independent of the simultaneity convention adopted, I had already encountered in my own work. I may point out here that until some simultaneity convention is adopted, a conservation law applying to a number of different particles has no meaning; for the essence of a conservation law is that we pick out some attribute of the motion of each particle, and add them all together. If these attributes are varying in time, as in gravitational problems, it is essential to decide at what epoch to evaluate each attribute, and so to adopt a standard of simultaneity. It is therefore very satisfactory that the conservation of energy comes out independently of the standard of simultaneity adopted. Similar considerations apply to the conservation of linear and angular momentum, to which I hope to return on a future occasion.
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MILNE, E. Letter. Nature 155, 755 (1945). https://doi.org/10.1038/155755a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/155755a0
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