There exist essentially two levels of investigation in theoretical
physics. One is primarily descriptive, concentrating as it does on
useful phenomenological approaches toward the most economical
classifications of large classes of experimental data on particular
phenomena. The other, whose thrust is explanatory, has as its aim the
formulation of those underlying hypotheses and their mathematical
representations that are capable of furnishing, via deductive analysis,
predictions - constituting the particulars of universals (the asserted
laws)- about the phenomena under consideration. The two principal
disciplines of contemporary theoretical physics - quantum theory and the
theory of relativity - fall basically into these respective categories.
General Relativity and Matter represents a bold attempt by its author to
formulate, in as transparent and complete a way as possible, a
fundamental theory of matter rooted in the theory of relativity - where
the latter is viewed as providing an explanatory level of understanding
for probing the fundamental nature ofmatter indomainsranging all the way
fromfermis and lessto light years and more. We hasten to add that this
assertion is not meant to imply that the author pretends with his theory
to encompass all ofphysics or even a tiny part of the complete objective
understanding of our accessible universe. But he does adopt the
philosophy that underlying all natural phenomena there is a common
conceptualbasis, and then proceeds to investigate how far such a unified
viewcan take us at its present stage of development
