"The equations of gravitation... signify that whenever we recognise the existence of one of these physical magnitudes it is always accompanied by corresponding curvatures of space-time. It is usual to assume that the curvatures are produced by those concrete somethings which we call mass, momentum, energy, pressure. In this way, we must concede a duality to nature; there would exist both matter and space-time, or, better still, matter and the metrical field of space-time. Einstein... attempted to remove this duality by proving that it was possible to attribute the entire existence of the metrical field, hence of space-time, to the presence of matter. This attitude led to a matter-moulding conception of the universe... And... only when this attitude was adhered to could Mach's belief in the relativity of all motion be accepted. Eddington's attitude is just the reverse. He prefers to assume that the equations of gravitation are not equations in the ordinary sense of something being equal to something else. In his opinion they are identities. They merely tell us how our senses will recognize the existence of certain curvatures of space-time by interpreting them as matter, motion, and so on. In other words, there is no matter; there is nothing but a variable curvature of space-time. Matter, momentum, vis viva, are the names we give to those curvatures on account of the varying ways they affect our senses."
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A. D'Abro, The Evolution of Scientific Thought from Newton to Einstein (1927) pp. 327-328
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Unification_in_science_and_mathematics
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Unification in science and mathematics
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