Open AccessOn Einstein's unified field theory
Author(s) -
G. C. McVittie
Publication year - 1929
Publication title -
proceedings of the royal society of london. series a, containing papers of a mathematical and physical character
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2053-9150
pISSN - 0950-1207
DOI - 10.1098/rspa.1929.0122
Subject(s) - electromagnetic field , gravitational constant , unified field theory , gravitational field , gravitation , einstein , field (mathematics) , constant (computer programming) , einstein field equations , mathematics , classical mechanics , classical field theory , exact solutions in general relativity , physics , mathematical physics , mathematical analysis , theoretical physics , quantum mechanics , pure mathematics , computer science , programming language
In a recent paper Prof. A. Einstein has proposed equations determining a field containing both gravitational and electromagnetic phenomena, the underlying geometry being of a type which admits the possibility of giving any arbitrary vector in the field a displacement which conserves parallelism at a distance. The purpose of the present paper is to try and obtain light on the new theory by applying it to a special case in which an exact solution of the usual gravitational and electromagnetic equations of the relatively theory is known. In II we obtain this solution, that is to say, we determine a set of values of thegμv and ϕμ which exactly satisfies the recognised relatively equations. It is found that this solution corresponds to an electrostatic field uniform in direction and nearly constant but with a slight exponential change of strength as we go along the field.