For purchase of this item, please read the instructions.

Volume 13: Pages 597-603, 2000

Time‐Symmetric Action‐at‐a‐Distance Electrodynamics and the Structure of Space‐Time

Cǎlin Galeriu

Department of Physics, Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts 01610 U.S.A.

We argue that the concept of “material point particle” is incompatible with the force laws of action‐at‐a‐distance electrodynamics, and that the trajectory of a particle is analogous to a string in static equilibrium. Geometrical arguments lead us to consider a time‐symmetric interaction law, and a microscopic electromagnetic field‐strength tensor which is no longer antisymmetric. As a consequence the rest mass of a particle, in our theory, is no longer constant; however its averaged variation is still null.

Keywords: relativity theory, action‐at‐a‐distance electrodynamics, time symmetry

Received: June 8, 2000; Published online: December 15, 2008