"The meaning of relativity [...] has been widely misunderstood. Philosophers play with the word, like a child with a doll. Relativity, as I see it, merely denotes that certain physical and mechanical facts, which have been regarded as positive and permanent, are relative with regard to certain other facts in the sphere of physics and mechanics. It does not mean that everything in life is mischievously topsy-turvy." (Albert Einstein [in George Sy Viereck, "What Life Means to Einstein", The Saturday Evening Post, 1929])
"[...] the most outstanding achievement of twentieth-century physics is not the theory of relativity with its welding together of space and time, or the theory of quanta with its present apparent negation of the laws of causation, or the dissection of the atom with the resultant discovery that things are not what they seem; it is the general recognition that we are not yet in contact with ultimate reality." (James H Jeans, "The Mysterious Universe", 1930)
"There is another side to the theory of relativity. [...]×the development of science is in the direction to make it less subjective, to separate more and more in the observed facts that which belongs to the reality behind the phenomena, the absolute, from the subjective element, which is introduced by the observer, the relative. Einstein's theory is a great step in that direction. We can say that the theory of relativity is intended to remove entirely the relative and exhibit the pure absolute." (Willem de Sitter, "Relativity and Modern Theories of the Universe", Kosmos, 1932)
"Two points should be specially emphasized in connection with the general theory of relativity. First, it is a purely physical theory, invented to explain empirical physical facts, especially the identity of gravitational and inertial mass, and to coordinate and harmonize different chapters of physical theory, especially mechanics and electromagnetic theory. It has nothing metaphysical about it. Its importance from a metaphysical or philosophical point of view is that it aids us to distinguish in the observed phenomena what is absolute, or due to the reality behind the phenomena, from what is relative, i.e. due to the observer.S econd, it is a pure generalization, or abstraction, like Newton's system of mechanics and law of gravitation. It contains no hypothesis, as contrasted with the atomic theory or the theory of quanta, which are based on hypothesis. It may be considered as the logical sequence and completion of Newton's Principia. The science of mechanics was founded by Archimedes, who had a clear conception of the relativity of motion, and may be called the first relativist. Galileo, who was inspired by the reading of the works of Archimedes, took the subject up where his great predecessor had left it. His fundamental discovery is the law of inertia, which is the backbone of Newton's classical system of mechanics, and retains the same central position in Einstein's relativistic system. Thus one continuous line of thought can be traced through the development of our insight into the mechanical processes of nature... characterized by the sequence [...] Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, Einstein." (Willem de Sitter, "The Astronomical Aspect of the Theory of Relativity", 1933)
"The fundamental presuppositions of classical physics, which led to the scientific picture of the 19th century, had been challenged for the first time by Einstein’s special relativity." (Werner K Heisenberg, 1934)
"We know, since the theory of relativity at least, that empirical sciences are to some degree free in defining dynamical concepts or even in assuming laws, and that only a system as a whole which includes concepts, coordinating definitions, and laws can be said to be either true or false, to be adequate or inadequate to empirical facts. This 'freedom', however, is a somewhat doubtful gift. The manifold of possibilities implies uncertainty, and such uncertainty can become rather painful in a science as young as psychology, where nearly all concepts are open and unsettled. As psychology approaches the state of a logically sound science, definitions cease to be an arbitrary matter. They become far-reaching decisions which presuppose the mastering of the conceptual problems but which have to be guided entirely by the objective facts." (Kurt Lewin, "Principles of topological psychology", 1936)
"The modern theory of relativity, on its mathematical side, is merely an elaboration of Riemann's analysis." (Julian L Coolidge, "A History of Geometrical Methods", 1940)
"Then the theory of relativity came and explained the cause of the failure. Electric action requires time to travel from one point of space to another, the simplest instance of this being the finite speed of travel of light […] Thus electromagnetic action may be said to travel through space and time jointly. But by filling space and space alone [excluding time] with an ether, the pictorial representations had all supposed a clear-cut distinction between space and time." (James H Jeans, "Physics and Philosophy", 1942)
"But Einstein came along and took space and time out of the realm of stationary things and put them in the realm of relativity - giving the onlooker dominion over time and space, because time and space are modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live." (Dimitri Marianoff & Palma Wayne, "Einstein: An Intimate Study of a Great Man", 1944)
"Not the state of rest, but the states of uniform translation form an objectively distinguished class of motions, and this puts an end to the substantial ether. Finally, and fourthly, the general relativity theory re-endows this metric world structure with the capacity of reacting to the forces of matter. Thus, in a sense, the circle is closed." (Hermann Weyl, "Philosophy of Mathematics and Natural Science" II, 1949
"The field equation may [...] be given a geometrical foundation, at least to a first approximation, by replacing it with the requirement that the mean curvature of the space vanish at any point at which no heat is being applied to the medium - in complete analogy with […] the general theory of relativity by which classical field equations are replaced by the requirement that the Ricci contracted curvature tensor vanish." (Howard P Robertson, "Geometry as a Branch of Physics", 1949)
"We may sum up as follows: According to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, an ether exists. Space without an ether is inconceivable." (Albert Einstein, "The World as I See It", 1949)
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