Alexander Konstantinovich Guts
Alexander Konstantinovich Guts | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Russian |
| Known for | Topos-theoretic foundations of general relativity; theory of time machines |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Mathematics, mathematical physics |
| Institutions | Dostoevsky Omsk State University |
Alexander Konstantinovich Guts is a Russian mathematician at Dostoevsky Omsk State University in Omsk, Russia, known for applying category and topos theory to the foundations of space-time physics and for speculative work on time travel. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Work
Guts has proposed reconstructing the general theory of relativity using topos theory rather than classical set theory and two-valued logic. In work with Egor B. Grinkevich, published as "Toposes in General Theory of Relativity" (1996), he investigated several distinct topos-theoretical approaches to space-time, including an axiomatic causal theory of space-time, smooth toposes as models of relativity, a "synthetic" theory of relativity, and space-time modelled as a Grothendieck topos. He argues that the resulting space-time theory is in general non-classical and differs from the usual Einstein theory, and that such a theory can be constructed in a "purely logical manner."
More recently he has developed a theory of gravitation based on Kock–Lawvere infinitesimal (synthetic differential) analysis, a framework that replaces classical two-valued logic with intuitionistic logic.
Guts has also published on multidimensional gravitation and on the theoretical possibility of time machines and "interstellar" travel, including work on time machines and foliations and on the restoration of the past. These proposals lie well outside mainstream general relativity, which is the context for his inclusion in de Climont's directory.