A Shape Dynamics Tutorial

Understand

Shape Dynamics (SD) is a new theory of gravity that is based on fewer and more fundamental first principles than General Relativity (GR).

• The most important feature of SD is the replacement of GR's relativity of simultaneity with a more tractable gauge symmetry, namely invariance under spatial conformal transformations.
• This Tutorial contains both a quick introduction for readers curious about SD and a detailed walk-through of the historical and conceptual motivations for the theory, its logical development from first principles and an in-depth description of its present status.
• The Tutorial is sufficiently self-contained for an undergrad student with some basic background in GR and Lagrangian/Hamiltonian mechanics.