X-Nico

unusual facts about general relativity


Oleg D. Jefimenko

In his opinion, there is no objective reason for abandoning Newton's force-field gravitational theory (in favor of a metric gravitational theory).


ADM formalism

-- The first lead sentence should define what it is--> developed in 1959 by Richard Arnowitt, Stanley Deser and Charles W. Misner is a Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity.

Conformal cyclic cosmology

The conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) is a cosmological model in the framework of general relativity, advanced by the theoretical physicists Roger Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan.

Extreme mass ratio inspiral

To zeroth order, the path of the lighter object will be a geodesic in the Kerr spacetime of the supermassive black hole.

Geometrodynamics

More properly, some authors use the phrase Einstein's geometrodynamics to denote the initial value formulation of general relativity, introduced by Arnowitt, Deser, and Misner (ADM formalism) around 1960.

Gravity Probe A

Gravity Probe A (GP-A) was a space-based experiment to test the theory of general relativity, performed jointly by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

IM Pegasi

Increased public awareness of it is due to its use as the guide star for the Gravity Probe B general relativity experiment.

Luigi Bianchi

Through the influence of Luther P. Eisenhart and Abraham Haskel Taub, Bianchi's classification later came to play an important role in the development of the theory of general relativity.

Pantur Silaban

In 1967, he went to United States to study General Relativity theory at Central Studies of Gravitation at Syracuse University under direction of Peter Bergmann and Joshua N. Goldberg whom were among authoritative experts in general relativity after the inventor, Albert Einstein.

Paul Lorenzen

Lorenzen took an early interpretation of Steven Weinberg (Gravitation and Cosmology, 1972) for his doubts about geometrical elements of general relativity, believing that Maxwell's equations are to be modified by general relativity instate.

Regge calculus

In general relativity, Regge calculus is a formalism for producing simplicial approximations of spacetimes that are solutions to the Einstein field equation.

Rex Geveden

After a few years stint at TBE Geveden joined NASA in 1990, and worked on hardware design for a number of science satellite missions, including as project manager for the Optical Transient Detector satellite, the Lightning Imaging Sensor satellite, and the Gravity Probe B satellite, a successful test of frame dragging effects predicted by General Relativity.

Richard Arnowitt

In the context of general relativity, he is best known for his development (with Stanley Deser and Charles Misner) of the ADM formalism, roughly speaking a way of describing spacetime as space evolving in time, which allows a recasting of Einstein's theory in terms of a more general formalism used in physics to describe dynamical systems, namely the Hamiltonian formalism.

Ronald Kantowski

Ronald Kantowski is a theoretical cosmologist, well known in the field of general relativity as the author, together with Rainer K. Sachs, of the Kantowski-Sachs dust solutions to the Einstein field equation.

Stanley Deser

In the context of general relativity, he is best known for his development (with Richard Arnowitt and Charles Misner) of the ADM formalism, roughly speaking a way of describing spacetime as space evolving in time, which allows a recasting Einstein's theory in terms of a more general formalism used in physics to describe dynamical systems, namely the Hamiltonian formalism.


see also

11th dimension

Supergravity, a field theory that combines the principles of supersymmetry and general relativity

Alternatives to general relativity

Whitrow, G. J. and Morduch, G. E. (1960) General relativity and Lorentz-invariant theories of gravitations, Nature 188, 790-794

Arthur Komar

His PhD dissertation was supervised by John Archibald Wheeler, titled Some Consequences of Mach’s Principle for General Relativity.

C. V. Vishveshwara

Later he developed interest in General Relativity and encouraged by Fuller, transferred to University of Maryland to work with Charles W. Misner.

Gravitational singularity

However, in 1991, physicists Stuart Shapiro and Saul Teukolsky performed computer simulations of a rotating plane of dust that indicated that general relativity might allow for "naked" singularities.

Ignazio Ciufolini

International Occhialini Prize and Medal of the UK Institute of Physics (IOP) and Italian Physical Society (SIF) awarded in London by Jocelyn Bell Burnell, president of IOP, for providing further experimental confirmation of Einstein's theory of General Relativity through the use of laser-ranged satellites to study and measure frame-dragging.

James York

James W. York (1939- )American mathematical physicist, expert on general relativity

Mendel Sachs

Yet another phenomenon that Sachs' theory can accommodate that standard cosmology might not is the Huge-LQG large quasar group, since general relativity does not presuppose homogeneity or isotropy, i.e., the cosmological principle.

Sticky bead argument

In 1957, at a conference at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, appealing to various mathematical tools developed by John Lighton Synge, A. Z. Petrov and André Lichnerowicz, Pirani explained more clearly than had previously been possible the central role played by the Riemann tensor and in particular the tidal tensor in general relativity.

Tetradic Palatini action

Another important action is the Plebanski action (see the entry on the Barrett-Crane model), and proving that it gives general relativity under certain conditions involves showing it reduces to the Palatini action under these conditions.

Wormhole

Later, other types of traversable wormholes were discovered as allowable solutions to the equations of general relativity, including a variety analyzed in a 1989 paper by Matt Visser, in which a path through the wormhole can be made where the traversing path does not pass through a region of exotic matter.