Talk:Kaluza-Klein theory
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This article asserts that all neurinos appear to be left-handed, "meaning that they are spinning in the direction of the fingers of the left hand when they are moving in the direction of the thumb". However, the Standard Model article implies that, while this may have been believed before, the recent (1998) discovery that neutrinos have mass has changed this. From the "Standard Model" page, "If neutrinos have non-zero mass, they necessarily travel slower than the speed of light. Therefore, it would be possible to "overtake" a neutrino, choosing a reference frame in which its direction of motion is reversed without affecting its spin (making it right-handed)"
Perhaps right handed neutrinos are now understood to be possible? Could a real physisict confirm/deny/correct this?
This is how I understand Kaluza-Klein theory: General Relativity directly explains gravitational deflection of light, and describes but does not explain gravitational acceleration of matter. Kaluza's insight was that if light propagated in a compacted fourth spatial dimension, its gravitational deflection explained by GR would look exactly like gravitational acceleration of matter in the 3 ordinary spatial dimensions -- so maybe matter is actually electromagnetic energy propagating in a compacted fourth dimension.
If the above explanation has aspects that are correct, I hope that a real physicist can add the information to the article.
Upon further reading, I see that Kaluza's original idea really attempted to unify gravity and electromagnetism in a single geometric theory. That is a really useful thing to do if the result explains things like the equivalence of gravitational mass and inertial mass, or how an electron absorbs or emits a photon.
- I too have worked through Kaluza's theory and I strongly agree that Kaluza's theory successfully and completely unifies gravity under general relativity and electromagnetism. In particular, I worked through the calculus in Peter Gabriel Bergmann's presentation of Kaluza's work, in _Introduction to the Theory of Relativity_. I have also studied quantum relativity. I feel that this extension does not invalidate Kaluza's work in any way.
- Regarding the extra dimension, Kaluza's theory assumes that the universe is INVARIANT in that dimension. So, of course we cannot observe it directly! No curling up is necessary. In fact, no theory has been developed which uses curled up dimensions to succesfully unify electromagnetism and gravity. I believe that this is the source of the myth that gravity has not be unified with the other forces.
- Joseph D. Rudmin
Can we have a date please to help place in some historical context
Linuxlad 20:36, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC).