Switch to: References

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. The nontriviality of trivial general covariance: How electrons restrict 'time' coordinates, spinors (almost) fit into tensor calculus, and of a tetrad is surplus structure.J. Brian Pitts - 2012 - Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 43 (1):1-24.
    It is a commonplace in the philosophy of physics that any local physical theory can be represented using arbitrary coordinates, simply by using tensor calculus. On the other hand, the physics literature often claims that spinors \emph{as such} cannot be represented in coordinates in a curved space-time. These commonplaces are inconsistent. What general covariance means for theories with fermions, such as electrons, is thus unclear. In fact both commonplaces are wrong. Though it is not widely known, Ogievetsky and Polubarinov constructed (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   14 citations  
  • Time and Fermions: General Covariance vs. Ockham's Razor for Spinors.J. Brian Pitts - unknown
    It is a commonplace in the foundations of physics, attributed to Kretschmann, that any local physical theory can be represented using arbitrary coordinates, simply by using tensor calculus. On the other hand, the physics and mathematics literature often claims that spinors \emph{as such} cannot be represented in coordinates in a curved space-time. These commonplaces are inconsistent. What general covariance means for theories with fermions is thus unclear. In fact both commonplaces are wrong. Though it is not widely known, Ogievetsky and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation