General Relativity Requires Amp`ere’s theory of magnetism [10]. Maxwell uni- Absolute Space and Time fied Faraday’s theory with Huyghens’ wave the- ory of light, where in Maxwell’s theory light is Rainer W. K¨uhne considered as an oscillating electromagnetic wave Lechstr. 63, 38120 Braunschweig, Germany which propagates through the luminiferous aether of Huyghens. We all know that the classical kinematics was re- placed by Einstein’s Special Relativity [11]. Less We examine two far-reaching and somewhat known is that Special Relativity is not able to an- heretic consequences of General Relativity. swer several problems that were explained by clas- (i) It requires a cosmology which includes sical mechanics. a preferred rest frame, absolute space and According to the relativity principle of Special time. (ii) A rotating universe and time travel Relativity, all inertial frames are equivalent, there are strict solutions of General Relativity. is no preferred frame. Absolute motion is not re- quired, only the relative motion between the iner- tial frames is needed. The postulated absence of an absolute frame prohibits the existence of an aether [11]. 1 Space and Time Before According to Special Relativity, each inertial General Relativity frame has its own relative time. One can infer via the Lorentz transformations [12] on the time of the According to Aristotle, the Earth was resting in the other inertial frames. Absolute space and time do centre of the universe. He considered the terrestrial not exist. Furthermore, space is homogeneous and frame as a preferred frame and all motion relative isotropic, there does not exist any rotational axis of to the Earth as absolute motion. Space and time the universe. were absolute [1]. It is often believed that the Michelson-Morley ex- In the days of Galileo the heliocentric model of periment [13] confirmed the relativity principle and Copernicus [2] was valid. The Sun was thought refuted the existence of a preferred frame. This to be resting within the centre of the universe and believe is not correct. In fact, the result of the defining a preferred frame. Galileo argued that only Michelson-Morley experiment disproved the exis- relative motion was observed but not absolute mo- tence of a preferred frame only if Galilei invariance tion. However, to fix motion he considered it as is assumed. The experiment can be completely ex- necessary to have not only relative motion, but also plained by using Lorentz invariance alone, the rela- absolute motion [3]. tivity principle is not required. Newton introduced the mathematical description By the way, the relativity principle is not a phe- of Galileo’s kinematics. His equations described nomenon that belongs solely to Special Relativity. only relative motion. Absolute motion did not ap- According to Leibniz it can be applied also to clas- pear in his equations [4]. sical mechanics. This inspired Leibniz to suggest that absolute Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity has three motion is not required by the classical mechanics problems. arXiv:physics/0209107v1 [physics.gen-ph] 30 Sep 2002 introduced by Galileo and Newton [5]. (i) The space of Special Relativity is empty. Huyghens introduced the wave theory of light. There are no entities apart from the observers and According to his theory, light waves propagate via the observed objects in the inertial frames. By con- oscillations of a new medium which consists of very trast, the space of classical mechanics can be filled tiny particles, which he named aether particles. He with, say, radiation or turbulent fluids. considered the rest frame of the luminiferous aether (ii) Without the concept of an aether Special as a preferred frame [6]. Relativity can only describe but not explain why The aether concept reappeared in Maxwell’s the- electric and magnetic fields oscillate in propagating ory of classical electrodynamics [7]. Faraday [8] light waves. unified Coulomb’s theory of electricity [9] with (iii) Special Relativity does not satisfy the equiva- 1 lence principle [14] of General Relativity, according observations, namely the redshift-distance relation to which inertial mass and gravitational mass are generated by the Hubble effect. It appears isotropic identical. Special Relativity considers only inertial only for a unique rest frame [25]. mass. I argued that the Friedmann-Lemaˆitre universe Special Relativity is a valid approximation of re- has a finite age and therefore a finite light cone. ality which is appropriate for the description of The centre-of-mass frame of this Hubble sphere can most of the physical phenomena examined until the be regarded as a preferred frame [26]. beginning of the twenty-first century. However, the After the discovery of the cosmic microwave back- macroscopic properties of space and time are better ground radiation by Penzias and Wilson [27], it was described by General Relativity. predicted that it should have a dipole anisotropy generated by the Doppler effect by the Earth’s mo- tion. This dipole anisotropy was predicted in ac- 2 General Relativity: Abso- cordance with Lorentz invariance [28] and later dis- lute Space and Time covered experimentally [29]. Peebles called these experiments “aether drift experiments” [30]. In 1915 Einstein presented the field equations of The preferred frames defined by the Robertson- General Relativity [15] and in 1916 he presented the Walker metric, the Hubble effect, and the cosmic first comprehensive article on his theory [16]. In a microwave background radiation are probably iden- later work he showed an analogy between Maxwell’s tical. In this case the absolute motion of the Sun theory and General Relativity. The solutions of the was determined by the dipole anisotropy experi- free Maxwell equations are electromagnetic waves ments of the cosmic microwave background radi- while the solutions of the free Einstein field equa- ation to be (371 ± 1) km/s. tions are gravitational waves which propagate on I suggested that this aether drift can give rise to an oscillating metric [17]. As a consequence, Ein- local physical effects. I introduced the theory of stein called space the aether of General Relativity quantum electromagnetodynamics [26]. It is a gen- [18]. However, even within the framework of Gen- eralization of quantum electrodynamics [31] which eral Relativity do electromagnetic waves not prop- includes Dirac’s magnetic monopoles [32] and two agate through a luminiferous aether. kinds of photons, Einstein’s electric photon [33] and Einstein applied the field equations of General Salam’s magnetic photon [34]. I predicted that ev- Relativity on the entire universe [19]. He presented ery light source which emits electric photons does a solution of a homogeneous, isotropic, and static emit also magnetic photons. The ratio between universe, where the space has a positive curvature. the interaction cross-sections of the magnetic pho- This model became known as the Einstein universe. ton and the electric photon shall depend on the However, de Sitter has shown that the Einstein uni- aether drift of the laboratory. The results of re- verse is not stable against density fluctuations [20]. cent experiments to test my theory may be inter- This problem was solved by Friedmann and preted as preliminary evidence for these magnetic Lemaˆitre who suggested a homogeneous and photon rays. These experiments were performed isotropic expanding universe where the space is in Vienna/Austria by Alipasha Vaziri in February curved [21]. 2002 and in Madison/Wisconsin by Roderic Lakes Robertson and Walker presented a metric for a in March and June 2002. homogeneous and isotropic universe [22]. Accord- ing to G¨odel this metric requires an absolute time [23]. In any homogeneous and isotropic cosmology 3 General Relativity: Ro- the Hubble constant [24] and its inverse, the Hub- ble age of the universe, are absolute and not rela- tating Universe and Time tive quantities. In the Friedmann-Lemaˆitre universe Travel there exists a relation between the actual age of the universe and the Hubble age. It is well-known that planets, stars, and galaxies According to Bondi and Gold, a preferred mo- rotate. So Lanczos and Gamow speculated that the tion is given at each point of space by cosmological entire universe may rotate and that the rotating 2 universe might have generated the rotation of the proved that an observer outside the gravitational galaxies [35]. field would also see time-travel. G¨odel was the first to show that a rotating uni- To conclude, General Relativity requires a cos- verse is a strict solution of Einstein’s field equa- mology which includes a preferred frame, absolute tions for a homogeneous and anisotropic universe. space and time and which may include a rotating He considered a non-expanding universe and has universe and time-travel. Such a universe may have shown that it allows closed time-like curves, i.e. originated not from a singularity (big bang), but time-travel. He predicted that the original order from a closed time-like curve (time-machine). of the rotation axes of galaxies was parallel to the universal rotation axis [23]. Raychaudhuri presented a model for an expand- References ing and rotating universe which is a generaliza- [1] Aristotle, De caelo (4th century BC). tion of both the Friedmann-Lemaˆitre universe and the G¨odel universe. This cosmology, too, includes [2] N. Copernicus, De revolutionibus orbium closed time-like curves [36]. coelestium (1543). Possibly, the Raychaudhuri universe did not start [3] G. Galilei, Discorsi e dimostrazioni matem- from a singularity (big bang), but from a closed atiche intorno a due nuove scienze attenenti time-like curve, i.e. from a time-machine. alla meccanica ed i movimente locali (Leida, Gregory, Thompson, and Tifft discovered that Elsevier, 1638). the distribution of the rotation axes for both the spiral and ellipsoid galaxies of the filament-like [4] I.