dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaHilbert's 'World Equations' and His Vision of a Unified Science
| Authors | Ulrich Majer, Tilman Sauer |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/0405110 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0405110 |
| DOI | 10.1007/0-8176-4454-7_14 |
| Journal | Einstein Studies Vol. 11 (2005) 259-276 |
Abstract
In summer 1923, a year after his lectures on the `New Foundation of Mathematics' and half a year before the republication of his two notes on the `Foundations of Physics,' Hilbert delivered a trilogy of lectures in Hamburg. In these lectures, Hilbert expounds in an unusually explicit manner his epistemological perspective on science as a subdiscipline of an all embracing science of mathematics. The starting point of Hilbert's considerations is the claim that the class of gravitational and electromagnetic field equations implied by his original variational formulation of 1915 provides valid candidate `world equations,' even in view of attempts at unified field theories \'a la Weyl and Eddington based on the concept of the affine connection. We give a discussion of Hilbert's lectures and, in particular, examine his claim that Einstein in his 1923 papers on affine unified field theory only arrived at Hilbert's original 1915 theory. We also briefly comment on Hilbert's philosophical viewpoints expressed in these lectures.
{
"annotation_id": "78a4e935-7ff7-4733-847c-fd2ed2aeee0c",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:00:49.941000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:00:49.941000Z",
"file_hash": "3fffca77a597b2ff92be3c688e6bfbe6eacbf0be79e4b8ceb2fa9aea7e12738b",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "In summer 1923, a year after his lectures on the `New Foundation of\nMathematics\u0027 and half a year before the republication of his two notes on the\n`Foundations of Physics,\u0027 Hilbert delivered a trilogy of lectures in Hamburg.\nIn these lectures, Hilbert expounds in an unusually explicit manner his\nepistemological perspective on science as a subdiscipline of an all embracing\nscience of mathematics. The starting point of Hilbert\u0027s considerations is the\nclaim that the class of gravitational and electromagnetic field equations\nimplied by his original variational formulation of 1915 provides valid\ncandidate `world equations,\u0027 even in view of attempts at unified field theories\n\\\u0027a la Weyl and Eddington based on the concept of the affine connection. We\ngive a discussion of Hilbert\u0027s lectures and, in particular, examine his claim\nthat Einstein in his 1923 papers on affine unified field theory only arrived at\nHilbert\u0027s original 1915 theory. We also briefly comment on Hilbert\u0027s\nphilosophical viewpoints expressed in these lectures.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/0405110",
"authors": [
"Ulrich Majer",
"Tilman Sauer"
],
"categories": [
"physics.hist-ph",
"gr-qc"
],
"doi": "10.1007/0-8176-4454-7_14",
"journal_ref": "Einstein Studies Vol. 11 (2005) 259-276",
"title": "Hilbert\u0027s \u0027World Equations\u0027 and His Vision of a Unified Science",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0405110"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "917ee4c6-43cf-40da-ab26-85d69b94097e",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}