Tokyo Wheeler or the epistemic preconditions of the Renaissance of relativity

DOI10.1007/978-3-030-50754-1_5zbMATH Open1472.83002arXiv1905.05988OpenAlexW2945448975MaRDI QIDQ1979673FDOQ1979673

Authors: Dieter Brill, A. S. Blum 

Publication date: 3 September 2021

Abstract: During the period identified as the Rebirth of General Relativity, John Wheeler was instrumental in retrieving the physics of gravity that had become hidden behind the mathematical formalism. For Wheeler himself the change in point of view was not from mathematics to physics; his thinking about gravity arose from, and was largely guided by, physical problems about elementary particles. We recount his development from the view of fields as derivable from particles, to fields as the more fundamental entities in nature. During the more than 10 years of his search for "particles first" Wheeler did not write an orderly sequence of accounts as his views developed, but the story could be pieced together from letters. and particularly from his extensive but seldom sequential notebook entries.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1905.05988

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zbMATH Keywords

John Archibald Wheeler

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) History of relativity and gravitational theory (83-03)

Cited In (5)

• The Renaissance of general relativity in context: a historiographical review
• Thoughts about a conceptual framework for relativistic gravity
• John Archibald Wheeler: A few highlights of his contributions to physics
• John Wheeler and the recertification of general relativity as true physics
• Patronage of gravitational physics and the relativity community in the USA (1949--1959)

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