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(1973) Philosophical problems of space and time, Dordrecht, Springer.

General relativity, geometrodynamics and ontology

Adolf Grünbaum

pp. 728-803

… Is space-time only an arena within which fields and particles move about as ‘physical’ and ‘foreign’ entities? Or is the four-dimensional continuum all there is? Is curved empty geometry a kind of magic building material out of which everything in the physical world is made: (1) slow curvature in one region of space describes a gravitational field; (2) a rippled geometry with a different type of curvature somewhere else describes an electromagnetic field; (3) a knotted-up region of high curvature describes a concentration of charge and mass-energy that moves like a particle? Are fields and particles foreign entities immersed in geometry, or are they nothing but geometry?

Publication details

DOI: 10.1007/978-94-010-2622-2_22

Full citation:

Grünbaum, A. (1973). General relativity, geometrodynamics and ontology, in Philosophical problems of space and time, Dordrecht, Springer, pp. 728-803.

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