MATHEMATICAL EQUIVALENCE VERSUS PHYSICAL EQUIVALENCE BETWEEN EXTENDED THEORIES OF GRAVITATIONS

We shall show that although Palatini f(R)-theories are equivalent to Brans-Dicke theories, still the first pass the Mercury precession of perihelia test, while the second do not. We argue that the two models are not physically equivalent due to different assumptions about free fall. We shall also go through perihelia test without fixing a conformal gauge (clocks or rulers) in order to highlight what can be measured in a conformal invariant way and what cannot. We shall argue that the conformal gauge is broken by choosing a definition of clock, rulers or, equivalently, of masses.