Related papers: The Geometry of Conventionality
The geometric foundations of General Relativity are revisited, with particular attention to its gauge invariance, as a key to understanding the true nature of spacetime. Beyond the common image of spacetime as a deformable 'fabric' filling…
Poincar\'e held the view that geometry is a convention and cannot be tested experimentally. This position was apparently refuted by the general theory of relativity and the successful confirmation of its predictions; unfortunately,…
Space-Time in general relativity is a dynamical entity because it is subject to the Einstein field equations. The space-time metric provides different geometrical structures: conformal, volume, projective and linear connection. A deep…
The geometrical nature of gravity emerges from the universality dictated by the equivalence principle. In the usual formulation of General Relativity, the geometrisation of the gravitational interaction is performed in terms of the…
Any acceptable quantum gravity theory must allow us to recover the classical spacetime in the appropriate limit. Moreover, the spacetime geometrical notions should be intrinsically tied to the behavior of the matter that probes them. We…
When joined the unified gauge picture of fundamental interactions, the gravitation theory leads to geometry of a space-time which is far from simplicity of pseudo-Riemannian geometry of Einstein's General Relativity. This is geometry of the…
Riemann's principle "force equals geometry" provided the basis for Einstein's General Relativity - the geometric theory of gravitation. In this paper, we follow this principle to derive the dynamics for any static, conservative force. The…
Gravitation, according to General Relativity, is an attribute of space-time's geometry and hence not a force in the Newtonian sense. This is a consequence of Einstein's equivalence principle, which so far passed all experimental tests with…
For many years now it has become conventional for theorists to argue that "space-time is doomed", with the difficulties in finding a quantum theory of gravity implying the necessity of basing a fundamental theory on something quite…
In this paper we show how a gravitational field generated by a given energy-momentum distribution (for all realistic cases) can be represented by distinct geometrical structures (Lorentzian, teleparallel and non null nonmetricity…
In a recent paper (arXiv:1412.6000) a general mechanism for emergence of cosmological space-time geometry from a quantum gravity setting was devised and departure from standard dispersion relations for elementary particle were predicted. We…
Gravity can be formulated as a gauge theory by combining symmetry principles and geometrical methods in a consistent mathematical framework. The gauge approach to gravity leads directly to non-Euclidean, post-Riemannian spacetime…
Although it's widely believed that gravity should have a quantum nature like every other force, the conceptual obstacles to constructing a quantum theory of gravity compel us to explore other perspectives. Gravity is not like any other…
There is an interesting dichotomy between a space-time metric considered as external field in a flat background and the same considered as an intrinsic part of the geometry of space-time. We shall describe and compare two other external…
`How do our ideas about quantum mechanics affect our understanding of spacetime?' This familiar question leads to quantum gravity. The complementary question is also important: `How do our ideas about spacetime affect our understanding of…
Two questions are investigated by looking successively at classical mechanics, special relativity, and relativistic gravity: first, how is space related with spacetime? The proposed answer is that each given reference fluid, that is a…
The configuration space of general relativity is superspace - the space of all Riemannian 3-metrics modulo diffeomorphisms. However, it has been argued that the configuration space for gravity should be conformal superspace - the space of…
We provide five rearticulations of the thesis that the structure of spacetime is conventional, rather than empirically determined, based upon variation of the structures that are empirically underdetermined and modal contexts in which this…
The problem of constructing a quantum theory of gravity is considered from a novel viewpoint. It is argued that any consistent theory of gravity should incorporate a relational character between the matter constituents of the theory. In…
Familiar textbook quantum mechanics assumes a fixed background spacetime to define states on spacelike surfaces and their unitary evolution between them. Quantum theory has changed as our conceptions of space and time have evolved. But…