Related papers: Emmy Noether on Energy Conservation in General Rel…
Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as the interaction of particles with space-time geometry, as opposed to interacting with a physical fluid, as in the old gravitational aether theories. Moreover, any theoretical…
Before developing his 1915 General Theory of Relativity, Einstein held the "Entwurf" theory. Tullio Levi-Civita from Padua, one of the founders of tensor calculus, objected to a major problematic element in this theory, which reflected its…
In the light of the local Lorentz transformations and the general Noether theorem, a new formulate of the general covariant angular momentum conservation law in Einstein-Cartan gravitation theory is obtained, which overcomes the critical…
Neither the world nor science came to an end when the gunfire stopped on 11 November 1918 (close to 11 AM in some time zone), but neither would ever be the same again. Part I of this inquiry (Observatory 138, 46-58, April 2018) looked at…
Recent work on the history of General Relativity by Renn, Sauer, Janssen et al. shows that Einstein found his field equations partly by a physical strategy including the Newtonian limit, the electromagnetic analogy, and energy conservation.…
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…
Einstein's biographer Albrecht F\"olsing explained: Einstein presented his field equations on November 25, 1915, but six days earlier, on November 20, Hilbert had derived the identical field equations for which Einstein had been searching…
In December 1911, Max Abraham published a paper on gravitation at the basis of which was Albert Einstein's 1911 June conclusion about a relationship between the velocity of light and the gravitational potential. In February 1912, Einstein…
Both Poincar\'e in his 1900 Festschrift paper \cite{Poincare} and Einstein in his 1905 \textsl{Annalen der Physik} article \cite{Einstein} were led to $E=mc^2$ by considering electromagnetic processes taking place in vacuo. Poincar\'e's…
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…
The conservation of energy and momentum have been viewed as undermining Cartesian mental causation since the 1690s. Modern discussions of the topic tend to use mid-19th century physics, neglecting both locality and Noether's theorem and its…
We work out the most general theory for the interaction of spacetime geometry and matter fields -- commonly referred to as geometrodynamics -- for spin-$0$ and spin-$1$ particles. The minimum set of postulates to be introduced is that (i)…
In 1945 Einstein concluded that [1]: 'The present theory of relativity is based on a division of physical reality into a metric field (gravitation) on the one hand, and into an electromagnetic field and matter on the other hand. In reality…
This remodeled form of Einstein's relativity theories retains and incorporates only experimentally proven principles. It is based on a generalized law for spinning and rotational motions, which is in fact the conservation law of momentum…
Albert Einstein's journey to formulate the theory of general relativity involved significant shifts in his approach to gravitational field equations. Starting in 1912, he collaborated with Marcel Grossmann and initially explored broadly…
Einstein regarded as one of the triumphs of his 1915 theory of gravity --- the general theory of relativity --- that it vindicated the action--reaction principle, while Newtonian mechanics as well as his 1905 special theory of relativity…
This paper attempts to throw some light on what is the correct choice of sources for Einstein's field equations for the gravitational metric, and on the definition of the Cauchy-Noether energy-momentum tensor of relativistic field theories,…
General Relativity with nonvanishing torsion has been investigated in the first order formalism of Poincare gauge field theory. In the presence of torsion, either side of the Einstein equation has the nonvanishing covariant divergence. This…
We present a historical review of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity' to mark the centenary of a key work that set the foundations of modern cosmology. We find that the paper followed as a…
The renaissance of General Relativity witnessed considerable progress regarding both understanding and justifying Einstein's equations. Both general relativists and historians of the subject tend to share a view, General Relativity…