How Weyl stumbled across electricity while pursuing mathematical justice

DOI10.1016/J.SHPSB.2008.06.003zbMATH Open1228.83003arXiv0804.2947OpenAlexW2111547328MaRDI QIDQ652789FDOQ652789

Authors: Alexander Afriat 

Publication date: 17 December 2011

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

Abstract: It is argued that Weyl's theory of gravitation and electricity came out of `mathematical justice': out of the equal rights direction and length. Such mathematical justice was manifestly at work in the context of discovery, and is enough (together with a couple of simple and natural operations) to derive all of source-free electromagnetism. Weyl's repeated references to coordinates and gauge are taken to express equal treatment of direction and length.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/0804.2947

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zbMATH Keywords

electromagnetismgaugegravitationrelativityunificationWeyl

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) History of relativity and gravitational theory (83-03)

Cites Work

• Wyl manifolds
• Conservation of isotopic spin and isotopic gauge invariance
• Unified field theories in the first third of the 20th century. Transl. from the Russian by Julian B. Barbour
• Observer fields in Weylian spacetime models
• Title not available (Why is that?)

Cited In (5)

• Logic of Gauge
• 'But one must not legalize the mentioned sin': phenomenological vs. dynamical treatments of rods and clocks in Einstein's thought
• A brief note on Weyl frames and canonical transformations in geometrical scalar-tensor theories of gravity
• The relativity of inertia and reality of nothing
• The plasticine ball argument. Hermann Weyl, the homogeneity of space and Mach's principle

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