General relativity as a hybrid theory: the genesis of Einstein's work on the problem of motion

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2017.09.006MaRDI QIDQ2272845zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Dennis Lehmkuhl

Publication date 16 September 2019

Published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. Part B. Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.09872, https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20190520-150912755

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Physics (00A79) Relativistic dynamics for problems in Hamiltonian and Lagrangian mechanics (70H40) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Equations of motion in general relativity and gravitational theory (83C10)

Abstract: In this paper I describe the genesis of Einstein's early work on the problem of motion in general relativity (GR): the question of whether the motion of matter subject to gravity can be derived directly from the Einstein field equations. In addressing this question, Einstein himself always preferred the vacuum approach to the problem: the attempt to derive geodesic motion of matter from the vacuum Einstein equations. The paper first investigates why Einstein was so skeptical of the energy-momentum tensor and its role in GR. Drawing on hitherto unknown correspondence between Einstein and George Yuri Rainich, I then show step by step how his work on the vacuum approach came about, and how his quest for a unified field theory informed his interpretation of GR. I show that Einstein saw GR as a hybrid theory from very early on: fundamental and correct as far as gravity was concerned but phenomenological and effective in how it accounted for matter. As a result, Einstein saw energy-momentum tensors and singularities in GR as placeholders for a theory of matter not yet delivered. The reason he preferred singularities was that he hoped that their mathematical treatment would give a hint as to the sought after theory of matter, a theory that would do justice to quantum features of matter.

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Cited in

(11)

• Frames and stresses in Einstein's quest for a generalized theory of relativity
• Dark matter realism
• Watching the clocks: interpreting the Page-Wootters formalism and the internal quantum reference frame programme
• Why Einstein did not believe that general relativity geometrizes gravity
• Einsteins physical strategy, energy conservation, symmetries, and stability: ``But Grossmann \& I believed that the conservation laws were not satisfied
• Geometry and motion in general relativity
• The general-relativistic case for super-substantivalism
• The dynamical approach to spin-2 gravity
• Dark matter = modified gravity? Scrutinising the spacetime-matter distinction through the modified gravity/dark matter lens
• Promising stabs in the dark: theory virtues and pursuit-worthiness in the dark energy problem
• Einstein and singularities

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