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Quotes from The Philosophy of Space and Time — Hans Reichenbach

1891–1953 Germany

← All quotes by Hans Reichenbach

7 quotes

Once a definition of congruence is given, the choice of geometry is no longer in our hands; rather, the geometry is now an empirical fact.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

Visual forms are not perceived differently from colors or brightness. They are sense qualities, and the visual character of geometry consists in these sense qualities.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

One definition of simultaneity differs from another because events that are simultaneous for one definition occur successively for another. What may be a simultaneity projection of a moving segment for one definition is a "focal-plane shutter photograph" for another.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

This fact... proves that space measurements are reducible to time measurements. Time is therefore logically prior to space.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

We must... maintain that mathematical geometry is not a science of space insofar as we understand by space a visual structure that can be filled with objects - it is a pure theory of manifolds.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

Common to the two geometries is only the general property of one-to-one correspondence, and the rule that this correspondence determines straight lines as shortest lines as well as their relations of intersection.

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

Light signals alone provide the metrical structure of the four-dimensional space-time continuum. The construction may be called light axioms.
§ 29

The Philosophy of Space and Time (1928)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Hans Reichenbach (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.