Next Philips Lecturer in Mathematics
Academic Year 1997/98
SHLOMO STERNBERG
from Harvard University
will give two talks on "Einstein's Principle as a Unifying Theme in Physics".
FIRST TALK
When: Monday March 23, 4:15 pm.
Where: Stokes 104
Tea: at 4 pm in Stokes 315.
SECOND TALK
When: Tuesday March 24, 4:15 pm.
Where: Stokes 104
Tea: at 4 pm in Stokes 315.
Abstract: In the physics of the 17th-19th century, a general organizing idea was the "variational principle" of Leibniz, Euler, Maupartuis et. al. ("We live in
the best of all possible worlds" to use Voltaire's parody.) Thus a geodesic is a curve extremizing arc length etc. In general relativity,a particle responds to a gravitational field (represented by a Lorentzian metric on space time) by moving along a geodesic. But Einstein offered an entirely different explanation of why this should be
the particle's response - an explanation based on considerations of
symmetry. This group theoretical explanation accounts for many other quite
different laws of physics, such as the time independent Schrodinger
equation, Hamilton's equations in classical mechanics, Lorentz's equation
for the motion of a charged particle in an electromagnetic field, and the
motion of a classical particle in the presence of a Yang-Mills field. All
of these equations are "passive" in the sense that we consider as valid the
approximation wherein the 'particle" has no effect on the "field". But
these equations are, in fact, closely associated (as necessary
conditions) to "field equations" which determine the field from its
sources. I would like to try to explain some of this circle of ideas.
Lecturers, titles and rooms will be added as they become available.
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