Pagina 194 de 212

We have another instance of far-reaching agreement between the

deductions from two theories in Newtonian mechanics on the one

hand, and the general theory of relativity on the other. This

agreement goes so far, that up to the present we have been able

to find only a few deductions from the general theory of

relativity which are capable of investigation, and to which the

physics of pre-relativity days does not also lead, and this

despite the profound difference in the fundamental assumptions of

the two theories. In what follows, we shall again consider these

important deductions, and we shall also discuss the empirical

evidence appertaining to them which has hitherto been obtained.

(a) Motion of the Perihelion of Mercury