English

Is Weyl unified theory wrong or incomplete?

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2015-09-08 v2 History and Philosophy of Physics

Abstract

In 1918, H. Weyl proposed a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism based on a generalization of Riemannian geometry. In spite of its elegance and beauty, a serious objection was raised by Einstein, who argued that Weyl's theory was not suitable as a physical theory . According to Einstein, the theory led to the prediction of a "second clock effect", which is not observed by experiments. We briefly revisit this point and argue that a preliminary discussion on the very notion of proper time is needed in order to consider Einstein's critical point of view.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1508.03766,
  title  = {Is Weyl unified theory wrong or incomplete?},
  author = {Carlos Romero},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1508.03766},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages. Presented at the meeting "GR 100 in Rio", celebrating the centenary of the general theory of relativity

R2 v1 2026-06-22T10:34:32.610Z