Abstract
IN one of his earlier papers, Dirac1 concluded that the gravity coefficient, far from being constant, varies inversely with a “universe time parameter”. This result was not accepted by the physicists and it was common opinion that a field theory featuring a non-constant gravity coefficient falls outside the limits of the general theory of relativity. However, Dirac's idea was revived recently. Starting from reasonable assumptions, C. Gilbert2 showed, in 1956, that Dirac's hypothesis is a corollary of the general theory of relativity. He further computed the age of the universe from the present value of the gravity constant and found it to be 4.1 × 109 years, in remarkable coincidence with the age of the Earth of 4.2 × 109 years, as determined by radioactive methods.
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References
Dirac, P. A. M., Proc. Roy. Soc., A, 165, 199 (1938).
Gilbert, C., Mon. Not. Roy. Astro. Soc., 116, 684 (1956).
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EGYED, L. Dirac's Cosmology and the Origin of the Solar System. Nature 186, 621–622 (1960). https://doi.org/10.1038/186621a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/186621a0
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