Hsu Jong-Ping – författare

The ICGAC-12 aimed to serve as a common platform around the Asia-Pacific region for the exchange and communication among all researchers in the fields of gravitation, astrophysics and cosmology. The scope covered in the conference includes dark matter, dark energy, experimental study of gravity, black holes, quantum Yang-Mills gravity, GR extension, variation of constants, fundamental physics space projects, relativistic astrophysics, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and gamma ray bursts.

Prof T-Y Wu is not only an eminent physicist with an encyclopedic knowledge, but also a motivational teacher and an influential policy maker in science and technology. The young Wu was inspired by Prof Y-T Yao, whose course on modern physics sparked an interest that burned during a long and productive career. Among Wu's achievements are 14 books and more than 120 papers covering subjects from atomic and molecular physics to plasmas and gases to atmospheric physics to relativity theory. Even at the age of 90 he remains active, publishing papers and lecturing on physics.Prof Wu feels grateful that he had the opportunity to educate a group of extremely talented students and, in particular, to discover T D Lee's remarkable talent. Although creative talent is no doubt a product of nature, it must also be nurtured. Prof Wu has played a crucial role for an entire generation of physicists in China and has won great respect from former students such as C N Yang, T D Lee, K Huang, and countless others. Prof Wu's love of physics and his dedication in teaching and research will always be remembered.

This collection of papers provides a broad view of the development of Lorentz and Poincaré invariance and spacetime symmetry throughout the past 100 years. The issues explored in these papers include: (1) formulations of relativity theories in which the speed of light is not a universal constant but which are consistent with the four-dimensional symmetry of the Lorentz and Poincaré groups and with experimental results, (2) analyses and discussions by Reichenbach concerning the concepts of simultaneity and physical time from a philosophical point of view, and (3) results achieved by the union of the relativity and quantum theories, marking the beginnings of quantum electrodynamics and relativistic quantum mechanics.Ten of the fundamental experiments testing special relativity are also discussed, showing that they actually support a four-dimensional spacetime based on broad Lorentz and Poincaré invariance which is more general than and includes the special theory of relativity. The generalization of the concepts of simultaneity, physical time and the nature of the speed of light within a four-dimensional spacetime framework leads to the conclusion that the symmetries embodied by the special theory of relativity can be realized using only a single postulate — the principle of relativity for physical laws.