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    Made withinDC&Austin
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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that Weyl abandoned his 1918 gauge theory around 1927/28 because quantum mechanics provided a superior account of electric charge conservation.

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    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Weyl's 1929 reformulation retained gauge invariance as a core structural principle, indicating conceptual continuity rather than abandonment.
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    • 2.A theorist who merely 'abandoned' a framework would not systematically reconstruct it within the new quantum context, as Weyl demonstrably did.
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    • 3.The shift from length rescaling to phase invariance represents a refinement of Weyl's research program, not its rejection in favor of a superior rival.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.The causal claim that quantum mechanics 'provided' the reason for abandonment conflates temporal succession with explanatory displacement.
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    • 2.Weyl himself in 1929 credited Einstein's criticism of the physical interpretation of length gauge—not quantum mechanics—as the primary motivation for revision.
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    • 3.Fock's and London's contributions redeployed Weyl's mathematical apparatus rather than superseding it, undermining the claim of quantum mechanics as a 'superior account'.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The quantum theory of the electron, developed around 1927/28, introduced a different kind of gauge invariance associated with Dirac's theory of the electron.
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    • 2.Fock (1926) and London (1927) suggested that this new quantum-mechanical gauge invariance more adequately accounted for the conservation of electric charge than Weyl's 1918 gauge theory did.
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