Related papers: Galileo's Ship and the Relativity Principle
The peculiarities of rotating frames of reference played an important role in the genesis of general relativity. Considering them, Einstein became convinced that coordinates have a different status in the general theory of relativity than…
Throughout the early history of Science the heliocentric world model was refused because it contradicted the thoughts of Aristotle and the medieval "Impetus" theory of movement. Even Galileo's sky observations did not lead to any acceptance…
This work may be defined as a modern philosophical approach to theoretical physics. Since ancient times science and philosophy evolved in parallel, thus renewing from time to time the epochal paradigms of human thought. We could not…
In the present manuscript, I examine an intriguing relation at the classical level between general relativity and a theory where matter couples uniquely multiplicatively to geometry in the Lagrangian density. Interestingly, the…
An earlier paper [1] presented a gravity theory based on the optics of de Broglie waves rather than curved space-time. While the universe's geometry is flat, it agrees with the standard tests of general relativity. A second paper [2] showed…
Galilean symmetry is the natural symmetry of inertial motion that underpins Newtonian physics. Although rigid-body symmetry is one of the most established and fundamental tools in robotics, there appears to be no comparable treatment of…
The properties of light in the presence of electromagnetic and gravitational fields are compared. Once one takes account of the fact that clock rates vary with distance from a massive object, it is argued that in an absolute sense light…
We give a critical analysis of the conceptual foundations of special relativity. We formulate a simple operational criterion for distinguishing between noninertial and inertial frames which is introduced prior to geometry. We associate the…
We show that the locally constant force necessary to get a stable hyperbolic motion regime for classical charged point particles, actually, is a combination of an applied external force and of the electromagnetic radiation reaction force.…
We present a novel derivation of the spacetime metric generated by matter, without invoking Einstein's field equations. For static sources, the metric arises from a relativistic formulation of D'Alembert's principle, where the inertial…
In the famous thought experiment studied in this article, Galileo attempted to refute the Aristotelian hypothesis that heavier bodies should fall more quickly than lighter ones. After pointing out some inconsistencies in Galileo's approach,…
We survey the role of stable clocks in general relativity. Clock comparisons have provided important tests of the Einstein Equivalence Principle, which underlies metric gravity. These include tests of the isotropy of clock comparisons…
Besides two fundamental postulates, (i) the principle of relativity and (ii) the constancy of the speed of light in all inertial frames of reference, special relativity uses the assumption about the Euclidean structures of gravity-free…
In this work, a precise quantum formulation of Einstein's Equivalence Principle (EEP) is developed within the framework of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics. By employing detailed analyses in both the Schr\"odinger and Heisenberg pictures,…
The equivalence principle was formulated by Einstein in an attempt to extend the concept of inertial frames to accelerated frames, thereby bringing in gravity. In recent decades, it has been realised that gravity is linked not only with…
We continue here the exam \cite{LuMa} of a theory of gravity that satisfies the Einstein Equivalence Principle (EEP) for any kind of matter/energy, except for the gravitational energy. This is part of a research program that intends to…
In a previous work we have shown that the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment in vacuum is deeply connected with the notion of time. The same is true for the the postulate of constancy of the two-way speed of light in vacuum in…
We show that Einstein's $R^{\hat{0} \hat{0}}$ equation for nonrelativistic matter and strong gravitational fields is identical with Newton's equation for relative radial acceleration of neighbouring freefalling particles, spherically…
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…
An alternative approach to Einstein's theory of General Relativity (GR) is reviewed, which is motivated by a range of serious theoretical issues inflicting the theory, such as the cosmological constant problem, presence of non-Machian…