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How Weyl stumbled across electricity while pursuing mathematical justice

Afriat, Alexander (2008) How Weyl stumbled across electricity while pursuing mathematical justice. [Preprint]

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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.


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Item Type: Preprint
Creators:
CreatorsEmailORCID
Afriat, Alexander
Keywords: Weyl, unified theory, gravitation, electromagnetism, Einstein, general relativity, gauge
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Values
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Specific Sciences > Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Depositing User: Alexander Afriat
Date Deposited: 02 Apr 2008
Last Modified: 07 May 2017 16:41
Item ID: 3966
Subjects: Specific Sciences > Mathematics > Values
General Issues > History of Science Case Studies
Specific Sciences > Mathematics
Specific Sciences > Physics
Specific Sciences > Physics > Relativity Theory
Specific Sciences > Physics > Symmetries/Invariances
Date: March 2008
URI: https://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/id/eprint/3966

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