Deriving Newtonian Spacetime Geometry - Greg Egan

"In Chapter 12 of Incandescence, the Splinterites succeed in deriving a possible geometry for the spacetime they inhabit. They come up with the simplest possible geometry that conforms to Zak's principle (that the sum of the three perpendicular “weights”, or tidal accelerations, is zero, after the effects of spin have been removed) while explaining the fact that the ratio of the garm-sard weight to the shomal-junub weight is less than three.

Before reaching that solution, though, they make a couple of false starts. Initially, they assume that there is a notion of universal time, and when they look for a connection that is consistent with that assumption, they end up deriving a spacetime geometry where the ratio of weights is always precisely three."


5 out of 5

http://www.gregegan.net/INCANDESCENCE/Schwarzschild/W.html