Re: Einstein's search for a unified theory

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ted Sung) wrote:
> In the latter years of Einstein's life, he attempted to come up with
> a unified theory of (I think it was) gravity and E+M.  Is this the
> case and is there any literature detailing his work in this area?

The methods tried: non-symmetric metrics, with the electromagnetic
field tensor embedded in the anti-symmetric part; connections with
torsion; but a skeptical view of Weyl's approach and the Kaluza-Klein
approach.  Toward the end of his life, he was also starting to
address Quantum Field Theory, and started working with the idea
of discarding the whole continuum-based approach in favor of an
algebraic foundation and an algebraic pregeometry.  Using the
prior history of his search for GR as a basis for an estimate,
he was about 3-5 years away from non-commutative geometry in
1955-1956 when he started writing about this new approach.