Abstract
The most important intellectual consequence of the general theory of relativity is the clarification it has brought into the relations between science and philosophy. In fact, the effects of the general theory of relativity were to re-establish physics on a philosophical basis and thereby to elucidate many bewildering phenomena and implications of modern research and thinking.
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
Albert Einstein
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References
The reader interested in further reading should be warned against the use of most relativistic models contained in books published before 1972. A few excellent books fill this lacuna: (i) Gravitation and Cosmology: Principles and Applications of the General Theory of Relativity, by Steven Weinberg (Wiley, N. Y., 1972); and (ii) Gravitation, by C.W. Misner, K.S. Thorne, and J. A. Wheeler (W.H. Freemen and Company, San Francisco, 1973).
Other books, especially designed for the general educated reader are, (iii) Modern Cosmology, by D.W. Sciama (Cambridge University Press, reprinted with corrections, 1972); (iv) Space, Time, and Gravity, by R.M. Wald, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1977; (v) Cosmology and Geophysics, by P. S. Wesson, Adam Hilger, Bristol, 1978; and (vi) General Relativity and Cosmology, by J. V. Narlikar, MacMillan Press, London, 1979. A classic book on this subject was written in 1933 by R.C. Tolman. It is entitled Relativity, Thermodynamics and Cosmology (Oxford Press, 1933), and is perhaps one of the best books ever written on relativity. However, its thermodynamical and cosmological portions could not stand the test of time. Updated surveys on relativistic thermodynamics and kinetic theories are available in two volumes edited by this author: Critical Review (of Classical and Relativistic) Thermodynamics, Mono, Baltimore, 1970, [CRT], and Modern Developments in Thermodynamics, Wiley, N. Y. 1974 [MDT].
Some familiarity with vector and tensor algebra is assumed for Section III.2. The concepts of stress tensor, conservation equations, conservative fields, momentum, mass density and energy fields were discussed in Lecture II.
Phys. Rev. Lett. 2 6, 27–30 (1971); Proceedings of the Conference on Experimental Tests of Gravitational Theories, Davies, R. W. ed. Calif. Inst. Tech., J. P. L., T. M. 33–499, Nov. 11–13 (1971), pp. 111–135 (Anderson, J. D. et. al and Shapiro et. al).
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There have also been proposals to measure the gravitational redshift of light from an artificial satellite [see Kleppner, D., et. al., Astrophys. Space Sci., 6, 13 (1970)].
Schild, A., “Time”, Texas Quarterly, 3, No. 3, 42–62 (1960); in Relativity Theory and Astrophysics, Am. Math. Soc, Providence, R. I, 1967, pp. 1–105.
Nordtvedt, K. L. Science, 178, 1157 (1972).
For a review of “metric theories” see also Ni, W. -T. Astrophys. J., 176,769 (1972). For a review of “ponmetric theories’ see Trautman, A., Bulletin de l’Academie Polonaise des Sciences (math., astr. phys.), 20, 185 (1972).
Whitehead, A. N. The Principle of Relativity, Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambr., 1922.
Will, C. M. Astrophys, J., 169, 141 (1971). See also Wesson’s book, loc. cit.
The layman is usually better convinced by the recent empirical evidence provided by Hafele and Keating [Science, 177, 166 (1972)] who used commercial jet flights and modern atomic clocks. They found that the relativistic dilation of time is a function of the velocity of the clock with respect to an absolute coordinate system at rest relative to the distant galaxies. The clocks which circumnavigated the earth in the eastward direction ran slower than those at rest on the earth’s surface by an average of 79 billionths of a second, while those moving westward ran faster than those at rest by an average of 273 billionths of a second.
Laundau, L. D. and Lifshitz, E. M., Fluid Mechanics (Pergamon Press, London, 1959), Section 127;
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Eringen, A. C. in A Critical Review of Thermodynamics (Stuart, E. B., Gal-Or, B.. and Brainard, A. J., eds.), Mono Book Corp., Baltimore, 1970, pp. 490.
Eringen, A. C. Science, 188, 317 (1975).
Albert Einstein, The Meaning of Relativity, Princeton University Press, 1956, pp. 28
To mention some of them by name: D. Z. Freedman, P. van Nieuwenhuizen, S. Ferrara, S. Deser, Y. A. Golfand, E.P. Likhtman, D. V. Volkov, V.P. Akulov, B. Zumino, J. Wess, J. H. Schwarz, A. Neveu, P. M. Ramond, and, of course, S. Weinberg and A. Salam for uniting the weak and the electromagnetic forces. Other important contributions were made by J. Ward, G. Hooft, M. J. G. Veltman, B. W. Lee, J. Zinn-Justin, P. Higgs, J. Goldstone, J. Strathdee, R. L. Arnowitt, P. Nath, M. Kaku, P. Townsend, M. Gell-Mann, M.T. Grisaru, J. A.M. Vermaseren, J-P. Vigier, D.D. Ivanenko, J. A. Wheeler, and Y. Ne’eman as well as by Yukawa, Finkelstein, Ambarzumian, Schild, Snyder, Koish, Fock, Treder, Möller, Rodicev, Schwinger, Sakharov, Zeldovitz, Brill, Piiz, Vladimirov, Utiyama, Sakurai, Kibble, Brodski, Sokolic, Frolov, Dürr, Mitter, Jamazaki, Naumov, DeWitt, Das, Fradkin and Vasiliev.
D. D. Ivanenko, “Problems of unifying cosmology with microphysics” in Physics, Logic, and History, W. Yourgrau and A. D. Breck, eds., Plenum Press, New York, 1970. It may be, perhaps, of some relevance to note here that I first read Ivanenko’s paper in Sept. 1979. The aforementioned ideas that I found there were very encouraging, for some of them are almost similar to the ones I have worked with since 1965. The 7-page paper of Ivanenko does not, however attempt to give any proof or supporting evidence to his assertions. Yet, they rely heavily on his contributions to the advance of unified field theories—a domain in which I am a new student.
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© 1987 Benjamin Gal-Or
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Gal-Or, B. (1987). From General Relativity and Relativistic Cosmology to Gauge Theories. In: Cosmology, Physics, and Philosophy. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-9661-5_4
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