Parts | Days | Selection | Search | Downloads | Help

GR: Fachverband Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 10: Poster

GR 10.1: Poster

Thursday, March 12, 2009, 12:25–12:34, Dekanatsgang

A Variable Speed of Light Theory of Gravity Based on Ideas of Dirac, Sciama and Dicke — •Alexander Unzicker — Pestalozzi-Gymnasium München

Though the contributions to cosmology originating from the above named researchers seem abandoned today, their basic ideas can be combined. We analyze Dirac's article on the large number hypothesis (1938), Sciama's proposal of realizing Mach's principle (1953), and Dicke's scalar theory of gravitation with a variable speed of light (1957). The description of curvature by a refractive index given in the latter is extended to matter waves using de Broglies relation for phase velocities. Thus Sciama's hypothesis on the gravitational constant G, a quantitative version Mach's principle, is recovered. Applied to cosmology, this model satisfies Dirac's large number hypotheses (LNH). While Dicke's proposal in first approximation agrees with the classical tests of GR, the cosmological redshift arises from a shortening of measuring rods rather than an expansion of space. The speed of light turns out to be the increase of the horizon R. A related discussion is given in arxiv:0708.3518.