THE THEORY OF SCALE RELATIVITY

Abstract

Basing our discussion on the relative character of all scales in nature and on the explicit dependence of physical laws on scale in quantum physics, we apply the principle of relativity to scale transformations. This principle, in combination with its breaking above the Einstein-de Broglie wavelength and time, leads to the demonstration of the existence of a universal, absolute and impassable scale in nature, which is invariant under dilatation. This lower limit to all lengths is identified with the Planck scale, which now plays for scale the same role as is played by light velocity for motion. We get new scale transformations of a Lorentzian form and generalize the de Broglie and Heisenberg relations. As a consequence the high energy length and mass scales now decouple, energy and momentum tending to infinity when resolution tends to the Planck scale, which thus plays the role of the previous zero point. This theory solves the problem of divergence of charge and mass (self-energy) in electrodynamics, implies that the four fundamental couplings (including gravitation) converge at the Planck energy, improves the agreement of GUT predictions with experimental results, and allows one to get precise estimates of the values of the fundamental coupling constants.