Einstein's triumph of the space-time coordinate system : A work presented in honor of Roberto Torretti

Abstract

Each student of Einstein must eventually make his or her their peace with Einstein's pronouncements on relativity and spacetime coordinate
systems. Einstein saw the development of relativity as the ultimately successful struggle to overcome certain spacetime coordinate sys terns and thereby to implement a generalized principle of relativity. This signal achievement of relativity is embodied in its general covariance. We now hold spacetime coordinate systems merely to be convenient devices for smoothly labeling events.