Speaker
Description
Henri Poincaré, indeed, was the first (July 23, 1905) to propose a new mechanics based on the principle of special relativity and covariance by Lorentz transformations, and at the same time also a first relativistic theory of gravitation as a field, i.e. in terms of gravitational waves, formulated within a four-dimensional space-time. After the formulation of general relativity (1915), independently of Poincaré, Alfred North Whitehead formulated another special-relativistic theory of gravitation. The technical and conceptual details of these theories are discussed and comparisons are made with Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. These theories have not only historical relevance, but also a possible theoretical importance to present a unique limit of the theory of general relativity. Indeed, general relativity is usually presented with a double limit: general relativity reduced locally in space-time to special relativity and its theory of gravitation had another limit in Isaac Newton's theory of gravitation. A special-relativistic theory of gravitation makes possible to consider special relativity as a theoretical construction, in terms of a unique epistemological principle of correspondence, constituting a unique limit to general relativity.