Comments on the Unification of Electromagnetism and Gravitation through "Generalized Einstein manifolds"

H. Akbar-Zadeh has recently proposed (J Geom Phys 17 (1995) 342) a new geometric formulation of Einstein--Maxwell system with source in terms of what are called "Generalized Einstein manifolds". We show that, contrary to the claim, Maxwell equations have not been derived in this formulation and that, the assumed equations can be identified only as sourcefree Maxwell equations in the proposed geometric set up. A genuine derivation of source-free Maxwell equations is presented within the same framework. We draw a conclusion that the proposed unification scheme can pertain only to source-free situations. Keywords: Generalized Einstein manifolds; Finsler Geometry; Einstein--Maxwell system 1991 MSC: 83Exx, 83C22 PACS: 04.40.Nr, 04.50.+h In a recent article [1], using the tangent bundle approach to Finsler Geometry, H. Akbar-Zadeh has introduced a class of Finslerian manifolds called "Generalized Einstein manifolds'. These manifolds are obtained through some constrained metric variations ..