Find Einstein's GR Papers: Read His Own Words

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around finding and accessing Einstein's original papers on General Relativity (GR) and the implications of his theories. Participants express interest in understanding GR through Einstein's own words while debating the relevance and clarity of his writings in light of modern advancements in the field.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Debate/contested
  • Conceptual clarification

Main Points Raised

  • One participant requests links to web versions of Einstein's original GR papers, emphasizing a desire to learn from his own words rather than summaries.
  • Another participant argues against the idea of learning GR solely from Einstein's writings, suggesting that the field has progressed significantly since then.
  • A participant mentions a specific link to a resource containing Einstein's texts and discusses conceptual errors in his work regarding "general covariance" and the equivalence principle.
  • Several participants express confusion about Einstein's discussions on the equivalence principle and its implications for gravitational fields, with questions about the existence of mass corresponding to these fields.
  • There are conflicting views on whether Einstein was confused about certain concepts, with some asserting he was not confused but rather had different expectations about gravity theories.
  • One participant highlights the importance of reading both Einstein's works and modern interpretations to gain a comprehensive understanding of relativity.
  • Another participant references Mach's principle and its relation to Einstein's theories, noting that GR does not fully embody this principle as Einstein believed.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express a mix of agreement and disagreement regarding the clarity of Einstein's writings and the relevance of his original ideas in contemporary physics. There is no consensus on whether Einstein was confused about specific concepts, and multiple interpretations of his work are presented.

Contextual Notes

Participants note limitations in understanding Einstein's original papers due to the evolution of the field and the complexity of the concepts discussed, particularly regarding the equivalence principle and Mach's principle.

  • #31
atyy said:
We start with Newton's laws in an inertial frame. When we transform to a noninertial frame, we pick up "Christoffel symbols". If instead of defining "same form" without Christoffel symbols, we define it as including the Christoffel symbols, then Newton's laws are valid in any frame.

It is the same with special relativity, which is capable of handling accelerated frames (eg. Rindler coordinates).

I like http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0603087 .

But the moment you bring Christoffel symbols into the picture, don't you march away from Newtonian Physics to General Relativity by taking into account the effects of curvature? And all this has been done quite recently after GR was developed and not at the time of Newton.vCorrect me if I am wrong as I am quite new to General Relativity.
 
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  • #32
aashay said:
But the moment you bring Christoffel symbols into the picture, don't you march away from Newtonian Physics to General Relativity by taking into account the effects of curvature? And all this has been done quite recently after GR was developed and not at the time of Newton.vCorrect me if I am wrong as I am quite new to General Relativity.

http://www.mth.uct.ac.za/omei/gr/chap6/node4.html

You can have Christoffel symbols in flat space, eg. when you use polar coordinates.

The essential idea is that the Christoffel symbols are first derivatives of the metric, where the Riemann curvature tensor which indicates the difference between flatness and curvedness is made of second derivatives of the metric.

In GR, fake gravity (from acceleration) makes first derivatives of the metric, whereas true gravity (more properly, tidal gravity) is due to curvature. (I'm sure bcrowell is going to disagree with my terminology here!)
 
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