On the Origin of Kaluza's Idea of Unification
History and Philosophy of Physics
2009-11-10 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We argue that the starting point of Kaluza's idea of unifying electrodynamics and gravity was the analogy between gravitation and electromagnetism which was pointed out by Einstein and Thirring. It seems that Kaluza's attention was turned to this point by the three papers on the Lense-Thirring effect and the analogy between gravitation and electromagnetism which were published a short time before Kaluza's paper was submitted. We provide here an English translation of the third of these papers.
Cite
@article{arxiv.physics/0406009,
title = {On the Origin of Kaluza's Idea of Unification},
author = {Y. Verbin and N. K. Nielsen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0406009},
year = {2009}
}