Five-dimensional space-time: Mass and the fundamental length

Abstract

Relativistic physics is described by a sixteen-component hypercomplex number system which reduces to the eight-component complex quaternion system when rest mass → 0. Rest mass is identified with a scale setting, cyclic, fifth dimension. The Lorentz group is generalized to rotations in five dimensions, a ten-parameter group. Special Relativity and General Relativity are tentatively welded into one unified covariance scheme in five-dimensional space-time.