Related papers: Einstein's biggest mistake?
A new approach to the cosmological constant problem is proposed by modifying Einstein's theory of general relativity, using instead a scalar-tensor theory of gravitation. This theory of gravity crucially incorporates the concept of quantum…
Had Einstein followed the Bianchi differential identity for the derivation of his equation of motion for gravitation, $\Lambda$ would have emerged as a true new constant of spacetime on the same footing as the velocity of light? It is then…
Towards the end of the 19th century, Kelvin pronounced as the "clouds of physics" 1) the failure of the Michelson-Morely experiment to detect an ether wind, 2) the violation of the classical mechanical equipartition theorem in statistical…
Taking a hint from Dirac's large number hypothesis, we note the existence of cosmic combined conservation laws that work to cosmologically long time. We thus modify or generalize Einstein's theory of general relativity with fixed…
In his Autobiographical Notes, Einstein mentioned that on his road to the final theory of general relativity it was a major difficulty to accustom himself to the idea that coordinates need not possess an immediate physical meaning in terms…
Cosmological observations indicate that the Einstein equation may not be entirely correct to describe gravity. However, numerous modifications of these equations usually do not affect foundations of the theory. In this paper two important…
The confrontation between General Relativity and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. The agreement between experiment and theory is numerically very impressive. However, some…
The cosmological constant and its phenomenology remain among the greatest puzzles in theoretical physics. We review how modifications of Einstein's general relativity could alleviate the different problems associated with it that result…
This is an essay sketching the line of thinking which has led the present author to propose the constituent or atomic model of gravitation more than a decade ago. It turns out that viewing the problem of gravitation as a quantum many body…
For several decades there has been no breakthrough in fundamental physics as revolutionary as relativity and quantum physics despite the amazing advancement of applied physics and technology. By discussing several examples of what physics…
The expansion of the observed universe appears to be accelerating. A simple explanation of this phenomenon is provided by the non-vanishing of the cosmological constant in the Einstein equations. Arguments are commonly presented to the…
In contrast to the phenomenon of nullification of the cosmological constant in the equilibrium vacuum, which is the general property of any quantum vacuum, there are many options in modifying the Einstein equation to allow the cosmological…
On his way to General Relativity (GR) Einstein gave several arguments as to why a special relativistic theory of gravity based on a massless scalar field could be ruled out merely on grounds of theoretical considerations. We re-investigate…
Einstein initially objected to the probabilistic aspect of quantum mechanics - the idea that God is playing at dice. Later he changed his ground, and focussed instead on the point that the Copenhagen Interpretation leads to what Einstein…
When considering possible time variations of fundamental physical constants one has to keep firm well established principles. Following this approach we keep firm the Action Principle, General Relativity (the Equivalence Principle), and…
There is a myth that Einstein's discovery of general relativity was due to his following beautiful mathematics to discover new insights about nature. I argue that this is an incorrect reading of the history and that what Einstein did was to…
The content of Einstein's theory of gravitation is encoded in the properties of the solutions to his field equations. There has been obtained a wealth of information about these solutions in the ninety years the theory has been around. It…
In applications of Einstein gravity one replaces the quantum-mechanical energy-momentum tensor of sources such as the degenerate electrons in a white dwarf or the black-body photons in the microwave background by c-number matrix elements.…
This year marks the hundredth anniversary of Einstein's 1915 landmark paper "Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" in which the field equations of general relativity were correctly formulated for the first time, thus rendering general…
The nature of gravity is fundamental to understand the scaffolding of the Universe and its evolution. Einstein's general theory of relativity has been scrutinized for over ninety five years and shown to describe accurately all phenomena…