Hermann Weyl: “Raum ⋅ Zeit ⋅ Materie: Vorlesungen über allgemeine Relativitätstheorie”

Abstract

In the history of the general theory of relativity, the significance and impact of Hermann Weyl’s monograph Raum ⋅ Zeit ⋅ Materie can hardly be underestimated. From a mathematical point of view, its first publication in 1918 is perhaps of equal importance as the publication of the relativistic field equations by Einstein in late 1915 which constituted the theory in the first place. Weyl’s book is, in fact, the first comprehensive mathematical exposition of the new relativistic theory of gravitation. It presented the new tensorial formulation of a physical theory in a way that not only put a rather idiosyncratic formulation on a new level of mathematical sophistication but also introduced a generation of mathematicians to an exciting new field of research in mathematical physics. It also introduced, especially in its later editions, a number of conceptual and technical innovations of its own that have born fruit in the further development of the theory. The book saw five heavily revised editions in rapid succession until 1923. The final, fifth edition has recently been reprinted, with extensive historical and technical introduction and commentary, by Domenico Giulini and Erhard Scholz.