FEeYnnan LECTURES on GRAVITATION Richard P. Feynman Feenando Bb. Morinigo = WILLIAM G. Waante Edited by Brian Hatfield With a Foreword by John Preskill and Kip S. Thorne & Addison-Wesley Publishing Company The Advanced Book Program Reading, Massachusetts Menlo Park, California New York Don Mills, Ontario Wokingham, England Amsterdam Bonn Sydney Singapore Tokyo Madrid San Juan Paris Seoul Milan Mexico City TaipeiMany of the designations used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks. Where those designations appear in this book and Addison-Wesley was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in initial capital letters. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feynman, Richard Phillips. Feynman lectures on gravitation / Richard P. Feynman, Fernando B. Morinigo, William G. Wagner [editors] ; edited by Brian Hatfield ; foreword by John Preskill and Kip S. Thorne. pcm, Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-201-62734-5 1. Gravitation. 2, Quantum gravity. I. Morinigo, Fernando B. I. Wagner, William G. III, Hatfield, Brian. IV. Title. QCIT8.F49 1995 530.1'1—de20 95-11076 oP Copyright © 1995 by California Institute of Technology, Fernando B. Morinigo, and William G. Wagner Foreword copyright © 1995 Addison-Wesley Publishing Company All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Published simultaneously in Canada. Jacket design by Lynne Reed Text design by Brian Hatfield Set in 11-point Computer Modern Roman by Brian Hatfield 123456789 10—MA—9998979695 First printing, June 1995Contents Foreword Quantum Gravity Lecture 1 1.1 A Field Approach to Gravitation 1.2 The Characteristics of Gravitational Phenomena 1.3 Quantum Effects in Gravitation 1.4 On the Philosophical Problems in Quantizing Macroscopic Objects 1.5 Gravitation as a Consequence of Other Fields Lecture 2 2.1 Postulates of Statistical Mechanics 2.2 Difficulties of Speculative Theories 2.3 The Exchange of One Neutrino 2.4 The Exchange of Two Neutrinos Lecture 3 3.1 The Spin of the Graviton 3.2 Amplitudes and Polarizations in Electrodynamics, Our Typical Field Theory 3.3 Amplitudes for Exchange of a Graviton 3.4 Physical Interpretation of the Terms in the Amplitudes 3.5 The Lagrangian for the Gravitational Field 3.6 The Equations for the Gravitational Field 3.7 Definition of Symbols vii roxxi