Some remarks on the notions of general covariance and background independence

Abstract

In the first part of this paper I review some of the difficulties that seem to obstruct generally valid definitions of "general covariance" and/or "background independence" The second and more historical part deals with a rather strange argument that Einstein put forward in his 1913 "Entwurf paper" with M. Grossmann to discredit scalar theories of gravity in order to promote general covariance.

26 pages, 3 figures. Contribution to ``An assessment of current paradigms in the physics of fundamental interactions'', edited by I.O. Stamatescu (Springer Verlag, to appear)

Cited by in corpus (2)

• On the emergence of Lorentzian signature and scalar gravity
• Events and observables in generally invariant spacetime theories