"I have now come to believe that the order of words in time or space is an ineradicable part of much of their significance – in fact, that the reason they can express space-time occurrences is that they are space-time occurrences, so that a logic independent of the accidental nature of spacetime becomes an idle dream. These conclusions are unpleasant to my vanity, but pleasant to my love of philosophical activity: until vitality fails, there is no reason to be wedded to one's past theories." (Bertrand Russell," Review of The Meaning of Meaning", 1926)
"[...] it has even been doubted whether what goes on in the atom could ever be described within the scheme of space and time. From the philosophical standpoint, I would consider a conclusive decision in this sense as equivalent to a complete surrender. For we cannot really alter our manner of thinking in space and time, and what we cannot comprehend within it we cannot understand at all. There are such things - but I do not believe that atomic structure is one of them." (Edwin Schrödinger, "Quantisation as a Problem of Proper Values", Annalen der Physik Vol. 81 (4), 1926)
"Life is perpetually creative because it contains in itself that surplus which ever overflows the boundaries of the immediate time and space, restlessly pursuing its adventure of expression in the varied forms of self-realization." (Rabindranath Tagore, "The Meaning of Art", 1926)
"Mathematicians call this combination [space and time] a quadratic form of the differentials of four variables, but we may call it more briefly, with Minkowski, ‘the Universe’." (Émile Borel, "Space and Time", 1926)
"In classical science, it was strange to find that action [...] should yet present the artificial aspect of an energy in space multiplied by a duration. As soon, however, as we realise that the fundamental continuum of the universe is one of space-time and not one of separate space and time, the reason for the importance of the seemingly artificial combination of space with time in the expression for the action receives a very simple explanation. Henceforth, action is no longer energy in a volume of space multiplied by a duration; it is simply energy in a volume of the world, that is to say, in a volume of four-dimensional space-time." (Aram D'Abro, "The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein", 1927)
"The notion of causality has been greatly modified by the substitution of space-time for space and time [...] Thus geometry and causation become inextricably intertwined." (Bertrand Russell, "The Analysis of Matter", 1927)
"Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures. A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order." (Bertrand Russell, "An Outline of Philosophy", 1927)
"We wish to obtain a representation of phenomena and form an image of them in our minds. Till now, we have always attempted to form these images by means of the ordinary notions of time and space. These notions are perhaps innate; in any case they have been developed by our daily observations. For me, these notions are clear, and I confess that I am unable to gain any idea of physics without them. […] I would like to retain this ideal of other days and describe everything that occurs in this world in terms of clear pictures." (Hendrik A Lorentz, [Fifth Solvay Conference] 1927)
"Let us draw an arrow arbitrarily. If as we follow the arrow we find more and more of the random element in the world, then the arrow is pointing towards the future; if the random element decreases the arrow points towards the past. [...] I shall use the phrase 'time's arrow' to express this one-way property of time which has no analogue in space. (Arthur Eddington, "The Nature of the Physical World", 1928)
"The immensity of space is paralleled by that of time." (James Jeans, "Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution", 1928)
"The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time. But we must presume that in some other way or aspect it can be differentiated into parts. Only here and there does it arise to the level of consciousness, but from such islands proceeds all knowledge. The latter includes our knowledge of the physical world." (Arthur Eddington, "The Nature of the Physical World", 1928)
"Standing on our microscopic fragment of a grain of sand, we attempt to discover the nature and purpose of the universe which surrounds our home in space and time." (Sir James H Jeans, "The Mysterious Universe", 1930)
"The concepts which now prove to be fundamental to our understanding of nature- a space which is finite; a space which is empty, so that one point [of our 'material' world] differs from another solely in the properties of space itself; four-dimensional, seven- and more dimensional spaces; a space which for ever expands; a sequence of events which follows the laws of probability instead of the law of causation - or alternatively, a sequence of events which can only be fully and consistently described by going outside of space and time - all these concepts seem to my mind to be structures of pure thought, incapable of realisation in any sense which would properly be described as material."(James Jeans, "The Mysterious Universe", 1930)
"In Newton's system of mechanics […] there is an absolute space and an absolute time. In Einstein's theory time and space are interwoven, and the way in which they are interwoven depends on the observer. Instead of three plus one we have four dimensions." (Willem de Sitter, "Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe", Kosmos, 1932)"The very nature of the quantum theory [...] forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively. (Niels Bohr, "Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature: Four Essays", 1934)
We must, therefore, be prepared to find that further advance into this region will require a still more extensive renunciation of features which we are accustomed to demand of the space time mode of description. (Niels H D Bohr, "Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature", 1934)
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