Related papers: Einstein on Involutions in Projective Geometry
In this article, we discuss the idea of gravitational lensing, from a systematic, historical and didactic point of view. We show how the basic lensing equation together with the concepts of geometrical optics opens a space of implications…
In this work, Einstein's view of geometry as physical geometry is taken into account in the analysis of diverse issues related to the notions of inertial motion and inertial reference frame. Einstein's physical geometry enables a…
We briefly review a few aspects of the development of differential geometry which may be considered as being influenced by Einstein's general relativity. We focus on how Einstein's quest for a complete geometrization of matter and…
Einstein's research manuscripts provide important insights into his exceptional creativity. At the same time, they can present difficulties for a publication in the documentary edition of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein (CPAE). The…
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…
This essay discusses the development of key geometric ideas in the 19th century which led to the formulation of the concept of an abstract manifold (which was not necessarily tied to an ambient Euclidean space) by Hermann Weyl in 1913. This…
The intimate relations between Einstein's equation, conformal geometry, geometric asymptotics, and the idea of an isolated system in general relativity have been pointed out by Penrose many years ago. A detailed analysis of the interplay of…
Einstein's early calculations of gravitational lensing, contained in a scratch notebook and dated to the spring of 1912, are reexamined. A hitherto unknown letter by Einstein suggests that he entertained the idea of explaining the…
We study the pages in Albert Einstein's 1916 landmark paper in the Annalen der Physik where he derived his field equations for gravity. Einstein made two heuristic and physically insightful steps. The first was to obtain the field equations…
On the basis of his `Z\"urich Notebook' I shall describe a particularly fruitful phase in Einstein's struggle on the way to general relativity. These research notes are an extremely illuminating source for understanding Einstein's main…
This article presents a brief review of some historical and philosophical aspects of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity', a landmark work that denoted the starting point of modern…
This paper examines Schwarzschild's key contributions to general relativity through his two papers. It focuses on his method for developing exterior and interior solutions. The study emphasizes Schwarzschild's ingenious methods and the…
A panoramic view, preceded by a short background of Newtonian mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics, is offered on the extent of how Einstein's space-time geometry, believed to be central to an understanding of the structure of the…
The recognition that physical space (or space-time) is curved is a product of the general theory of relativity, such as dramatically shown by the 1919 solar eclipse measurements. However, the mathematical possibility of non-Euclidean…
The objective of this paper is not simply to present an historical overview of Einstein's cosmological considerations, but to discuss the central role they played in shaping the paradigm of relativistic cosmology. This, we'll show, was a…
We show how the birth of perspective painting in the Italian Renaissance led to a new way of interpreting space that resulted in the creation of projective geometry. Unlike other works on this subject, we explicitly show how the craft of…
The importance of Einstein's geometrization philosophy, as an alternative to the least action principle, in constructing general relativity (GR), is illuminated. The role of differential identities in this philosophy is clarified. The use…
Einstein's first mention of the uniformly rotating disk in print was in 1912, in his paper dealing with the static gravitational fields. After the 1912 paper, the rotating disk problem occurred in Einstein's writings only in a 1916 review…
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 Einstein Archives contain a considerable collection of calculations in the form of working sheets and scratch paper, documenting Einstein's scientific preoccupations during the last three decades of his life until his death in 1955.…