Classical Unified Field Theories - Kaluza's Fifth Dimension

Kaluza's Fifth Dimension

Kaluza's approach to unification was to embed space-time into a five-dimensional cylindrical world; one of four space dimensions and one of time. Unlike Weyl's approach, Riemannian geometry was maintained, and the extra dimension allowed for the incorporation of the electromagnetic field vector into the geometry. Despite the relative mathematical elegance of this approach, in collaboration with Einstein and Einstein's aide Grommer it was determined that this theory did not admit a non-singular, static, spherically symmetric solution. This theory did have some influence on Einstein's later work and was further developed later by Klein in an attempt to incorporate relativity into quantum theory, in what is now known as Kaluza-Klein theory.

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