Why and how did Einstein want to unify field theory?

par Prof. Tilman Sauer (Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz)

jeudi 15 mai 2025, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Paris

Salle Denisse (Observatoire de Paris)

After his groundbreaking achievements in establishing the special and the general theories of relativity in 1905 and 1915, Einstein pursued a program of finding a mathematical representation in which the gravitational and electromagnetic fields emerged as a unified entity. Physicists, historians, and philosophers have largely dismissed this endeavor as having been fruitless. Nevertheless, Einstein entertained high hopes in his search for a unified theory despite frequent setbacks and disappointments when he encountered difficulties and problems over and over again. Ironically, his search produced some insights that proved valid in astrophysical and cosmological contexts, while they were intended to advance a quantum theory of matter. In the presentation, I will take a look at Einstein's unified field theory program from a historical perspective of his overarching heuristics.