relativityn.
/ˌrɛləˈtɪvᵻti/, U.S. /ˌrɛləˈtɪvᵻdi/ I. General senses.
1. The fact or condition of being relative; relativism. Also: an instance of this.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > relationship > [noun] > relativity
respectiveness1650
relativeness1673
relativitya1834
a1834 S. T. Coleridge Lit. Remains (1839) IV. 223 In every religious and moral use of the word, God,..a relativity, a distinction in kind..is so essentially implied [etc.].
1889 St. G. Mivart Truth 258 The relativity of beauty is an accidental relativity.
1934 Jrnl. Gen. Psychol. 10 76 The relativity of normality is important in what may some day come to be a true social engineering.
1957 D. H. Parker Philos. of Value i. 4 Another reason..why it appears difficult to define value is its well-known relativity.
2006 Daily Mail (Nexis) 1 Aug. 12 An educational system in which exam results and standards of attainment are all now relative is introducing the same corrosive relativity to moral teaching as well.
2. Chiefly in plural.
a. A comparison, a comparative relationship; (hence) the relative position or status of two or more things; a difference, a disparity.
ΚΠ
1859 R. W. Morgan Christianity & Mod. Infidelity 137 In relativities between the Deity and man we must use terms of sense, space, and time.
1929 Syracuse (N.Y.) Herald 23 Aug. 14/1 It is..fairly evident that the famous ‘yardstick’..will be more of a technical justification for measuring the relativity between large cruisers than a means of finding parity.
1979 Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica) 13 June 6/4 IQ relativities between social and ethnic groups.
1994 Internat. Affairs 70 530 The new international distribution of power involving the power relativities of the United States and the former Soviet Union.
2004 W. Arts & L. Halman European Values at Turn of Millenium vii. 79 Relativities between countries matter for social inequality as subjectively perceived and experienced by individuals.
b. spec. The relative difference in salaries or positions between businesses (more fully external relativity) or between categories of employees in the same business (more fully internal relativity). Cf. differential n. 4b.
ΘΚΠ
society > occupation and work > working > career > [noun] > analysis or grading of posts or salaries
job analysis1916
work measurement1916
relativity1944
society > trade and finance > fees and taxes > payment for labour or service > wage structures and scales > [noun] > wage scale > relative grading of salaries
relativity1944
1944 Econ. Jrnl. 54 419 The relativities between different occupations may raise difficult questions, but they are not of fundamental import in the unemployment question.
1966 New Statesman 21 Jan. 71/1 Union A makes a claim in January, on the grounds that they have fallen behind B and C. When A's claim is agreed, B makes a claim in February, because relativity has been destroyed.
1971 Nature 20 Aug. 513/1 The institution pressed for the use of internal relativities to determine salaries.
1997 S. Fredman Women & Law vi. 247 External relativities are expressly excluded from the scope of the EqPA [= Equal Pay Act] by the provision requiring that comparisons be confined to an individual employer.
2007 M. Armstrong Employee Reward Managem. & Pract. (ed. 2) i. 6 Equitable reward processes ensure that relativities between jobs are measured as objectively as possible.
II. Technical senses.
3. Physics. The quantitative dependence of observations on the relative motion of an observer and an observed object, esp. as regards the nature and behaviour of light, space, time, and gravity; the branch of physics concerned with this, which arose out of the work of Albert Einstein (see the note following).Einstein's principle of relativity, in its restricted form, is the postulate that the laws of nature have the same form in all inertial reference frames; in its more general form, it states that the laws of nature, when expressed in a suitable (‘co-variant’) form, have the same form in all reference frames, whether inertial or not.The special theory of relativity (also called special relativity) is a theoretical framework proposed by Einstein in 1905 ( Ann. der Physik 17 891), based on the hypothesis that the speed of light in a vacuum is constant for all observers in any inertial frame; it results in the unification of space and time in a four-dimensional continuum and the equivalence of mass and energy, and shows how the uniform relative motion of observers affects their measures of length and time.The general theory of relativity (also called general relativity), proposed by Einstein in 1915 ( Ann. der Physik (1916) 49 284), extends the special theory of relativity to systems accelerating with respect to one another, postulating the equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, and assuming that the results of the special theory must be valid in the limiting case of zero gravitational potential. It leads to a new set of equations of motion and the result that gravitational forces are a manifestation of the curvature of space-time.These two theories considered together form the modern theory of relativity, which represents an extension and generalization of the corresponding principles in classical, or Newtonian, mechanics.One of the predictions of the general theory is the extent to which light is bent when passing near the sun. An opportunity to test this came in 1919, when there was a total eclipse in Africa. An expedition was sent out under Eddington to make the observations. It was the press reports of the results of this (e.g. quot. 1919) that brought Einstein and his theory to the attention of the general public and worldwide fame.
ΘΚΠ
the world > matter > physics > relativity > [noun]
relativity1858
the world > matter > physics > relativity > [noun] > principle of
principle of relativity1858
the world > matter > physics > relativity > [noun] > Einstein's special theory
special theory of relativity1905
the world > matter > physics > relativity > [noun] > Einstein's general theory
general theory of relativity1916
1858 London Rev. Oct. 63 Motion implies relativity of either place or time, both of which are incompatible with eternity.
1864 G. H. Lewes Aristotle Index 394/2 The relativity of Motion and Rest.
1876 J. C. Maxwell Matter & Motion vi. 84 Our whole progress up to this point may be described as a gradual development of the doctrine of relativity of all physical phenomena. Position we must evidently acknowledge to be relative.
1882 J. B. Stallo Concepts Mod. Physics xii. 204 The same considerations which evince the relativity of motion also attest the relativity of..space and time.
1892 K. Pearson Gram. of Sci. vi. 250 Once realize the relativity of motion and the symmetry of the planetary system is seen to depend largely on the standpoint from which we perceive it.
1905 W. J. G. tr. Poincaré Sci. & Hypoth. v. 76 The state of the bodies and their mutual distances at any moment will solely depend on the state of the same bodies and on their mutual distances... This is what we shall call, for the sake of abbreviation, the law of relativity.
1905 Sci. Abstr. A. 8 2277 A. Einstein... The relativity of lengths and times.
1906 J. W. Young tr. H. Poincaré in Bull. Amer. Math. Soc. 12 243 The principle of relativity, according to which the laws of physical phenomena must be the same for a stationary observer as for one carried along in a uniform motion.
1916 Monthly Notices Royal Astron. Soc. 76 701 These considerations have led Einstein to his postulate of general relativity, which requires the laws of nature to be invariant for all transformations of co-ordinates.
1919 Times 15 Nov. 13/4 The deflection is nearly double what it would be calculated on Newtonian principles, and corresponds with the prediction made by Dr. Einstein from his theory of relativity.
1920 R. W. Lawson tr. A. Einstein Relativity vii. 20 There is not the least incompatibility between the principle of relativity and the law of propagation of light... This theory has been called the special theory of relativity.
1962 in K. Lorenz King Solomon's Ring (Time ed.) Pref. p. xiii Einsteinian relativity has disclosed to the hard scientist the unpleasant truth that there is nothing in the universe that can be measured accurately except the speed of light.
1973 L. J. Tassie Physics Elem. Particles 203 An important result of the theory of special relativity is time dilatation, or the slowing down of moving clocks.
1991 C. A. Ronan Nat. Hist. Universe 21 Relativity theory has been confirmed and its results have become accepted as part of the fabric of the universe.
2004 Vanity Fair (N.Y.) June 142/1 He intended to be the first to reconcile Albert Einstein's theory of relativity with Max Planck's quantum mechanics.
Compounds
General attributive.
relativity theory n.
ΚΠ
1883 Jrnl. Speculative Philos. 17 69 Sensationalism can never give knowledge of the sine qua non of the Relativity theory: the existence of an absolute object.
1926 W. Lewis Art of being Ruled xii. iii. 388 The Relativity theory, the copernican upheaval, or any great scientific convulsion, leaves a new landscape.
1967 F. D. Kahn & H. P. Palmer Quasars vi. 55 Relativity theory comes in two varieties. The first kind is special relativity, discovered by Einstein in 1905.
2002 K. Heusch tr. H. Fritzsch Curvature of Spacetime xi. 154 In relativity theory we look for the path that maximizes time, following the principle of cosmic laziness.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2009; most recently modified version published online June 2022).
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