Schucking starts his lecture with the question “What is General Relativity?” In this lecture, he discusses a number of important aspects of GR, such as parallel transport, the metric connection, torsion tension and teleparallelism. While discussing these, Schucking mentions work performed by Planck and Cartan on these concepts.
Frauendiener talks about wave solutions of the gravitational field: gravitational waves. He starts with an overview into the first developments in the research on gravitational waves, between 1962 and 1964. A key property of the metric is that it is conformal invariant: it is allowed to be multiplied by a number. Gravitational waves are these …
Development and Applications of Conformal Infinity Read More »
In general relativity space-time ends at singularities. The big bang is considered as the Beginning and the big crunch, the End. However these conclusions are arrived at by using general relativity in regimes which lie well beyond its physical domain of validity. Examples where detailed analysis is possible show that these singularities are naturally resolved …
Franklin discusses the idea of a fifth fundamental force of nature. CP violations, for example in the K-meson decay, could suggest a modification of the gravitational force. He discussed the repeat of a famous experiment by Fishbach, first performed by Eötvös, that could determine whether such as force exists. However, the results obtained were in …
Pfister discusses the problem of a rotating massive sphere. This raises the question whether there is an induced gravitational force, similar to induction in electromagnetism. He discusses work performed by Thirring in the early 20th century, and his own work from 1985.
Will gives an overview of different experiments that have been performed as tests of the theory of General Relativity in the 20th century, and an outlook of what is possible in the 21st century. He discusses light deflection, gravitational waves and binary pulsar systems, amongst others.
This lecture by Eisenstaedt considers the interpretations of the Schwarzschild field solution for black holes. This recording is of quite bad quality. Combined with the absence of supporting material, it is very difficult to follow the lecture without prior knowledge.
Brading discusses extensively the axiomatic method used by Hilbert, and his two Communications papers from 1916, that discuss general covariance and causality. This lecture is accompanied by a very informative presentation.
This lecture by Sauer covers the work done by Hilbert, in interaction with Einstein around 1915. Around this time, Einstein was working on a gravitational field equation. Hilbert was inspired by this after a visit by Einstein, and developed his well-known axioms and a dynamic field theory, further inspired by work done by Mie.
Brown covers the topic of Lorentz contraction. This follows from the postulates of relativity, but is not explained by it. Earlier papers by Fitz-Gerald and Lorentz discuss a shape deformation in the context of a spherical collection of charges that moves, and deforms. Time dilation also follows from these considerations, however, Einstein added to this …
Why do rods contract? Extending Bell’s “Lorentzian Pedagogy” into General Relativity Read More »
