Vector and Tensor Analysis, 1950, Harry Lass, 0177610514, 9780177610516, Mcgraw- Hill, 1950
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A Contextual Analysis of the Early Work of Andrzej Trautman and Ivor
A contextual analysis of the early work of Andrzej Trautman and Ivor Robinson on equations of motion and gravitational radiation Donald Salisbury1,2 1Austin College, 900 North Grand Ave, Sherman, Texas 75090, USA 2Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Boltzmannstrasse 22, 14195 Berlin, Germany October 10, 2019 Abstract In a series of papers published in the course of his dissertation work in the mid 1950’s, Andrzej Trautman drew upon the slow motion approximation developed by his advisor Infeld, the general covariance based strong conservation laws enunciated by Bergmann and Goldberg, the Riemann tensor attributes explored by Goldberg and related geodesic deviation exploited by Pirani, the permissible metric discontinuities identified by Lich- nerowicz, O’Brien and Synge, and finally Petrov’s classification of vacuum spacetimes. With several significant additions he produced a comprehensive overview of the state of research in equations of motion and gravitational waves that was presented in a widely cited series of lectures at King’s College, London, in 1958. Fundamental new contribu- tions were the formulation of boundary conditions representing outgoing gravitational radiation the deduction of its Petrov type, a covariant expression for null wave fronts, and a derivation of the correct mass loss formula due to radiation emission. Ivor Robin- son had already in 1956 developed a bi-vector based technique that had resulted in his rediscovery of exact plane gravitational wave solutions of Einstein’s equations. He was the first to characterize shear-free null geodesic congruences. He and Trautman met in London in 1958, and there resulted a long-term collaboration whose initial fruits were the Robinson-Trautman metric, examples of which were exact spherical gravitational waves. -
Relativistic Astrophysics: the View from Texas in Baltimore (Review)
btropliysica/ Letters, 1981, Vol. 22, pp. 21-30 C> 1981 Gordon and Breach, Science Publishers, Inc. 0004-6388/81/2201-002 I $06.5010 Printed in the United States of America Relativistic Astrophysics: The View from Texas in Baltimore (Review) V. L. TRIMBLE Department of Physics, University of'Ca/ifornia. Irvine CA 92717 and Astronomy Program, University of Maryland College Park MD 20742 S. P. MARAN Laborarory for Astronomy and Solar Physics. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt MD 20771 (Received July 7, 1981) · INTRODUCTION quantum theory and cannot be turned into one. It 0 is not renormalizable. That is, many seemingly The phrase relativistic astrophysics" was in sensible calculations yield infinite answers, and vented by Ivor Robinson, the late Alfred Schild, there is no coherent prescription for subtracting and Englebert Schucking on July 4th, 1963, as the infinite part to leave a finite, correct answer, part of the title of a symposium they were then in the way that quantum electrodynamics deals organizing at Dallas ("Conference on Gravita with the infinities of electromagnetism. tional Collapse and Other Topics in Relativistic 0 Even at the classical level, there may be linger Astrophysics ). The glory of the name, according ing doubts: Thomas Van Flandern (U.S. Naval to Robinson (who claims to have been out of the Observatory) finds, primarily from precise timings room at the crucial moment), was that no one of lunar occultations, that the constant of gravity knew what it meant, so they could have anything is decreasing by 3 parts in 10 11 per year, which is they wanted at the conference. -
Curriculum Vitae Charles W
Curriculum Vitae Charles W. Misner University of Maryland, College Park Education B.S., 1952, University of Notre Dame M.A., 1954, Princeton University Ph.D., 1957, Princeton University University Positions 1956{59 Instructor, Physics Department, Princeton University 1959{63 Assistant Professor, Physics, Princeton University 1963{66 Associate Professor, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Maryland 1966{2000 Professor, Physics, University of Maryland, College Park 1995{99 Assoc. Chair, Physics, University of Maryland 2000{ Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scientist, Physics, University of Maryland Visitor 2005 (April, May) MPG-Alfred Einstein Institute, Postdam, Germany 2002 (January{March) MPG-Alfred Einstein Institute, Postdam, Germany 2000{01 (November{April) MPG-Alfred Einstein Institute, Postdam, Germany 2000 (January) Institute for Theoretical Physics, U. Cal. Santa Barbara 1983 (January) Cracow, Poland: Ponti¯cal Academy of Cracow 1980{81 Institute for Theoretical Physics, U. Cal. Santa Barbara 1977 (May) Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Mass. 1976 (June) D.A.M.T.P. and Caius College, Cambridge, U.K. 1973 (spring term) All Souls College, Oxford 1972 (fall term) California Institute of Technology 1971 (June) Inst. of Physical Problems, Academy of Sciences, USSR, Moscow 1969 (fall term) Visiting Professor, Princeton University 1976 (summer) Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark 1966{67 Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, Cambridge University, England 1 1960 (spring term) Department of Physics, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts 1959 (spring and summer) Institute for Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen 1956 (spring and summer) Institute for Theoretical Physics, Leiden, the Netherlands Honors and Awards Elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, May 2000 Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics (Am. -
Ivor Robinson: a Brief Appreciation of His Science by Roger Penrose May 2017
Ivor Robinson: a Brief Appreciation of His Science By Roger Penrose May 2017 Ivor Robinson had an important influence on my research into mathematical physics. I believe that it was through Dennis Sciama that I first met him, sometime in the 1950s. Ivor always spoke about his ideas with impressive gestures, distinctive prose, and infectious enthusiasm. He had a remarkable original talent for words, and this was his way of conveying his impressive research ideas to the world outside. When he could find an appropriate colleague to write it all up, this would usually result in an important joint publication. I never had the privilege of collaborating with Ivor in this way, but I benefited greatly, in particular, from his famous 1962 paper with Andrzej Trautman. This had a considerable importance for me with regard to my understandings of asymptotically flat space-times, and how to describe such asymptotic flatness in a clear geometrical way. Even more influential for me was his seminal role in my development of the theory of twistors. This came from Ivor’s ingenious procedure for the construction of what are called twisting null solutions of Maxwell’s equations. He had found a way, starting from non-twisting such solutions, to obtain twisting ones, by displacing them in an imaginary direction, and then taking the real part. (The experts will know what I mean here!) The simplest case of this provided what I referred to as a “Robinson congruence”, and it yielded the key insight, for me, enabling the launching of the theory of twistors in 1967. -
Editorial Note To: J. Ehlers, F. A. E. Pirani and A. Schild, the Geometry of Free Fall and Light Propagation
Editorial note to: J. Ehlers, F. A. E. Pirani and A. Schild, The geometry of free fall and light propagation Andrzej Trautman General Relativity and Gravitation ISSN 0001-7701 Volume 44 Number 6 Gen Relativ Gravit (2012) 44:1581-1586 DOI 10.1007/s10714-012-1352-5 1 23 Your article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution license which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works, as long as the author of the original work is cited. You may self- archive this article on your own website, an institutional repository or funder’s repository and make it publicly available immediately. 1 23 Gen Relativ Gravit (2012) 44:1581–1586 DOI 10.1007/s10714-012-1352-5 GOLDEN OLDIE EDITORIAL Editorial note to: J. Ehlers, F. A. E. Pirani and A. Schild, The geometry of free fall and light propagation Andrzej Trautman Published online: 31 March 2012 © The Author(s) 2012. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Keywords Lorentzian geometry · Conformal structures · Projective structures · Free fall · Light propagation · Golden Oldie The article by Jürgen Ehlers, Felix Pirani, and Alfred Schild (EPS), reprinted here as a Golden Oldie, is devoted to the problem of deriving the Lorentzian geometry that underlies the space-time of general relativity from compatible conformal and projective structures on a four dimensional manifold. The geometry is based on a set of axioms; the proofs, even if not complete, are presented in a form appealing to physicists; they are well illustrated by carefully drawn figures. This article has been influenced—perhaps even inspired—by the early papers by Hermann Weyl on the foundations of differential geometry and their relation to physics. -
Explanation, Geometry, and Conspiracy in Relativity Theory
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilSci Archive Explanation, geometry, and conspiracy in relativity theory James Read∗ Abstract I discuss the debate between dynamical versus geometrical ap- proaches to spacetime theories, in the context of both special and general relativity, arguing that (a) the debate takes a substantially different form in the two cases; (b) different versions of the geometri- cal approach|only some of which are viable|should be distinguished; (c) in general relativity, there is no difference between the most viable version of the geometrical approach and the dynamical approach. In addition, I demonstrate that what have previously been dubbed two `miracles' of general relativity admit of no resolution from within gen- eral relativity, on either the dynamical or `qualified’ geometrical ap- proaches, modulo some possible hints that the second `miracle' may be resolved by appeal to recent results regarding the `geodesic principle' in GR. ∗[email protected] 1 Contents 1 Introduction 3 2 Background 5 2.1 Spacetime theories . 5 2.2 Symmetries . 6 2.3 Special and general relativity . 7 2.3.1 Special relativity . 7 2.3.2 General relativity . 8 3 The dynamical/geometrical debate 11 3.1 Special relativity . 12 3.1.1 The geometrical approach . 12 3.1.2 The dynamical approach . 13 3.2 General relativity . 13 3.2.1 The geometrical approach . 14 3.2.2 The dynamical approach . 14 4 Qualified and unqualified explanations 15 5 The geometrical approach 16 5.1 Two geometrical approaches . -
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Notices
AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Notices Edited by J. H. CURTiss llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltllllllllltt ISSUE NO. 26 OCTOBER, 1957 •lltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllltl CONTENTS MEETINGS Calendar of Meetings .....•.......•.........••....•.....•.•...•..•....••... 2 Program of the October Meeting in Washington .....•...•••....... 3 PRELIMINARY ANNOUNCEMENTS OF MEETINGS ..•.•.....•.......• 10 NEWS ITEMS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS .•...•••.•.•......••.....•.••....•. 14 PERSONAL ITEMS ..•...•.....•.....•.............•.•.............•............ 24 NEW PUBLICATIONS ...•.....•.....•.....•.........•...........•.......•...... 35 CATALOGUE OF LECTURE NOTES: Supplement No.3 .•...•....... 41 Published by the Society ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN and PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND Printed in the United States of America CALENDAR OF MEETINGS NOTE: This Calendar lists all of the meetings which have been approved by the Council up to the date at which this issue of the NOTICES was sent to press. The meeting dates which fall rather far iii the future are subject to change. This is particularly true of the meetings to which no numbers have yet been assigned. Meet Deadline ing Date Place for No. Abstracts 539 November 15-16, 1957 Los Angeles, California Oct. Z 540 November Z9-30, 1957 Coral Gables, Florida Oct. Z 541 November Z9-30, 1957 -
A Snapshot of JL Synge
A Snapshot of J. L. Synge Peter A. Hogan,∗ School of Physics University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland Abstract A brief description is given of the life and influence on relativity the- ory of Professor J. L. Synge accompanied by some technical examples to illustrate his style of work. 1 Introduction When I was a postdoctoral fellow working with Professor Synge in the School of Theoretical Physics of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies he was fifty–one years older than me and he remained research active for another twenty years. John Lighton Synge FRS was born in Dublin on 23rd. March, 1897 and died in Dublin on 30th. March, 1995. As well as his emphasis on, and mastery of, the geometry of space–time he had a unique delivery, both verbal and written, which I will try to convey in the course of this short article. But first the basic facts of his academic life are as follows: He was educated in St. Andrew’s College, Dublin and entered Trinity College, University of Dublin in 1915. He graduated B.A. (1919), M.A. (1922) and arXiv:1902.09648v1 [gr-qc] 25 Feb 2019 Sc.D. (1926). He was Assistant Professor of Mathematics in the University of Toronto (1920–25), subsequently returning to Trinity College Dublin as Professor of Natural Philosophy (1925–30) and then left for the University of Toronto again to take up the position of Professor of Applied Mathemat- ics (1930–43). From there he went to Ohio State University as chairman of the Mathematics Department (1943–46) followed by Head, Mathematics De- partment at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh (1946–48) before ∗Email: [email protected] 1 Figure 1: J. -
MATTERS of GRAVITY Contents
MATTERS OF GRAVITY The newsletter of the Division of Gravitational Physics of the American Physical Society Number 50 December 2017 Contents DGRAV News: we hear that . , by David Garfinkle ..................... 3 APS April Meeting, by David Garfinkle ................... 4 Town Hall Meeting, by Emanuele Berti ................... 7 Conference Reports: Hawking Conference, by Harvey Reall and Paul Shellard .......... 8 Benasque workshop 2017, by Mukund Rangamani .............. 10 QIQG 3, by Matt Headrick and Rob Myers ................. 12 Obituary: Remembering Cecile DeWitt-Morette, by Pierre Cartier ........... 15 Editor David Garfinkle Department of Physics Oakland University Rochester, MI 48309 Phone: (248) 370-3411 Internet: garfinkl-at-oakland.edu WWW: http://www.oakland.edu/physics/Faculty/david-garfinkle Associate Editor Greg Comer Department of Physics and Center for Fluids at All Scales, St. Louis University, St. Louis, MO 63103 Phone: (314) 977-8432 Internet: comergl-at-slu.edu WWW: http://www.slu.edu/arts-and-sciences/physics/faculty/comer-greg.php ISSN: 1527-3431 DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed in the articles of this newsletter represent the views of the authors and are not necessarily the views of APS. The articles in this newsletter are not peer reviewed. 1 Editorial The next newsletter is due June 2018. Issues 28-50 are available on the web at https://files.oakland.edu/users/garfinkl/web/mog/ All issues before number 28 are available at http://www.phys.lsu.edu/mog Any ideas for topics that should be covered by the newsletter should be emailed to me, or Greg Comer, or the relevant correspondent. Any comments/questions/complaints about the newsletter should be emailed to me. -
Race for the Kerr Field
General Relativity and Gravitation (2011) DOI 10.1007/s10714-008-0700-y HISTORY G. Dautcourt Race for the Kerr field Received: 25 July 2008 / Accepted: 30 September 2008 c The Author(s) 2008 Abstract Roy P. Kerr has discovered his celebrated metric 45 years ago, yet the problem to find a generalization of the Schwarzschild metric for a rotating mass was faced much earlier. Lense and Thirring, Bach, Andress, Akeley, Lewis, van Stockum and others have tried to solve it or to find an approximative solution at least. In particular Achilles Papapetrou, from 1952 to 1961 in Berlin, was inter- ested in an exact solution. He directed the author in the late autumn of 1959 to work on the problem. Why did these pre-Kerr attempts fail? Comments based on personal reminiscences and old notes. Keywords Exact solutions, Axisymmetric stationary fields, Kerr metric, Black Hole, History of physics 1 Introduction The old Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin was certainly a good place af- ter the Second World War to continue the research of its most prominent former member, Albert Einstein. Here Einstein had worked 19 years and created his beau- tiful theory of gravitation. Here several attempts had been undertaken to test the theory: Einstein’s young coworker, the astronomer Erwin Finley Freundlich, had tried to see (with little success) gravitational redshift effects in astronomical ob- jects like the Sun. Freundlich was also active in several campaigns to observe Solar eclipses with the aim to verify the predicted displacement of stars seen near the Sun. And here Karl Schwarzschild, the director of the Astrophysical Observa- tory at Potsdam, a town at the outskirts of Berlin, had published in 1916 the first exact solution of Einstein’s field equations, describing the exterior gravitational field of a nonrotating spherical mass [44]. -
Whitehead's Principle of Relativity-Unpublished Lectures By
1 J.L.SYNGE on 2 WHITEHEAD’S PRINCIPLE OF RELATIV- ITY. 2.1 APPENDIX A: Solar Limb-Effect; B: Figures 2.2 Critically edited by A. John Coleman, 2.3 Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. 2.4 2.5 Dogmatic Opinions and Objective Thoughts of the Editor. [email protected] It was the opinion of Professor Synge in 1951 - probably until his death -, as it is my opinion in 2005 that the evidence for the validity of Einstein’s and of Whitehead’s theories of Gravitation is roughly of equal value. Neither Synge nor I would claim that either is “Correct” . Certainly, Whitehead would be the last to do so. I refer to these theories as GRT and PR. Since GRT is the dominant faith among current relativists, am I not, in the words of Synge’s Introduction, “attempting to exhume a corpse” by men- tioning Einstein’s and Whitehead’s Theories in the same breath? Has not our Sacred College1 spoken, dismissing Whitehead with faint praise and a passsing reference, in 1970? Both PR and GRT presuppose the validity of Einstein’s Special theory(SRT ). C.M. Will, in his discussion2 of PR, states in foot-note (3) that, as regards theAdvance of the perihelion, the Bending of light and the Retardation of elec- tromagnetic signals, the two theories are both within the limits of observation. However, he also claimed , by a complicated argument concerning the local gravitational constant, G, that he had administered the coup de grace to PR arXiv:physics/0505027v2 [physics.gen-ph] 19 May 2005 just as, in my opinion, QM has done to GRT. -
“But One Must Not Legalize the Mentioned Sin”: Phenomenological Vs
“But One Must Not Legalize the Mentioned Sin”: Phenomenological vs. Dynamical Treatments of Rods and Clocks in Einstein’s Thought Marco Giovanelli [email protected] Abstract This paper offers a historical overview of Einstein’s vacillating attitude towards ‘phenomenological’ and ‘dynamical’ treatments of rods and clocks in relativity theory. In Einstein’s view, a realistic microscopic model of rods and clocks was needed to account for the very existence of measuring devices of identical construction that always measure the same unit of time and the same unit of length. It will be shown that the empirical meaningfulness of both relativity theories depends on what, following Max Born, one might call the ‘principle of the physical identity of the units of measure’. In an attempt to justify the validity of such a principle, Einstein was forced by different interlocutors, in particular Hermann Weyl and Wolfgang Pauli, to deal with the genuine epistemological, rather then physical question of whether a theory should be required to describe the material devices needed for its own verification. Keywords: Albert Einstein, Relativity Theory, Rods and Clocks, Hermann Weyl, Wolfgang Pauli, Constructive Relativity, Confirmational Holism Intrinsically Brobdingnag and Lilliput are precisely the same; it needs an intruding Gulliver—an extraneous standard of length—to make them appear different. A. S. Eddington 1. Introduction In recent years, thanks mainly to Harvey Brown’s seminal work (for the most part collected in Brown, 2005), increasing attention has been drawn to Einstein’s ‘self-confessed sin’ of treating rods and clocks as ‘primitive’, ‘self-sustained’, or ‘unstructured’ entities.