General Relativity and Matter: A Spinor Field Theory from Fermis to Light-Years (Fundamental Theories of Physics) [Hardcover]

M. Sachs (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

`...to read it should be a rewarding experience for anyone who is concerned with understanding the most fundamental features of the physicist's world view. ...well written and contains some very useful material on both the conceptual and technical aspects of relativity.' Foundations of Physics, 15 (1985)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 232 pages
• Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (July 31, 1982)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9027713812
• ISBN-13: 978-9027713810
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,253,677 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobel prize winning material., June 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: General Relativity and Matter: A Spinor Field Theory from Fermis to Light-Years (Fundamental Theories of Physics) (Hardcover)

This book represents a world change in Physics as fundamental as the works of Newton and Einstein. The theory is a remarkable extension of the work of Einstein in his later years. Professor Sachs is a master of clear and lucid writing. A true masterpiece !

Gravity and Electromagnetism are now naturally married in a brilliant re-derivation of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. Sachs uncovers a long forgotten paper by Einstein and Mayer that holds the secret. But Einstein missed its fundamental importance. The vector basis used by Einstein in deriving the General Theory is incomplete. Just as Maxwell (and Tait) used the more complete basis of quaternions in deriving Maxwell's equations, Sachs builds a complete theory of General Relativity but using a quaternionic basis. Hamilton and his quaternions are finally vindicated.

The "square root problem" of the fundamental metric defining space-time disappears with the natural factorization of the metric stated in a quaternionic basis. The true nature of spin that has eluded all the vendors of Quantum Mechanics comes simply from the correct application of relativistic covariance. It does NOT depend on the quantum mechanical nature of the description per se.

The additional key insight is that Sachs realises that Einstein needed to eliminate the discrete symmetries of reflections in space and time. Sachs points out that the theory of relativity compares laws of nature in reference frames that are distinguished from each other ONLY in terms of their relative motion - a continuous set of transformations.

Sachs can lay a strong claim to having merged all the known forces in this brilliant work. It is a fairly reasonable hypothesis that the ONLY forces in nature are NOW shown to be Gravity and Electromagnetism. The Strong and Weak forces are simply aspects of Gravity and Electromagnetism at an extremely short range. Sachs demonstrates in a mathematical tour de force that all of nature appears to be contained in his equations from nuclear dimensions all the way through to the properties of astronomical objects. An oscillating Universe cosmology naturally arises instead of the Big Bang discontinuity. All discontinuities fade away into the smooth continuous fabric of Sach's space-time continuum.

I suspect there will be many years before the true nature of this staggering leap of Sachs is recognized. Meanwhile Physics wanders in the wilderness of the string theory and other well meaning but misguided theories that come from academics wandering too far from the shirt-tails of geniuses like Einstein and Newton.