Tokyo Wheeler or the Epistemic Preconditions of the Renaissance of Relativity

TL;DR

This paper explores John Wheeler's role in reviving the physical understanding of gravity during the Renaissance of General Relativity, emphasizing his shift from particles to fields as fundamental entities.

Contribution

It reconstructs Wheeler's evolving perspective on gravity through analysis of his letters and notebooks, highlighting his influence on the epistemic foundations of relativity.

Findings

Wheeler shifted from a particle-based view to a field-based view of gravity.

His physical problems with elementary particles guided his conceptual change.

Reconstructed timeline from letters and notebooks shows his development over 10 years.

Abstract

During the period identified as the Rebirth of General Relativity, John Wheeler was instrumental in retrieving the physics of gravity that had become hidden behind the mathematical formalism. For Wheeler himself the change in point of view was not from mathematics to physics; his thinking about gravity arose from, and was largely guided by, physical problems about elementary particles. We recount his development from the view of fields as derivable from particles, to fields as the more fundamental entities in nature. During the more than 10 years of his search for "particles first" Wheeler did not write an orderly sequence of accounts as his views developed, but the story could be pieced together from letters. and particularly from his extensive but seldom sequential notebook entries.