Of Light and Shadows

Einstein’s genius and penetrating physical intuition led to the general theory of relativity, which incorporates gravity into the geometry of spacetime. However, the theory of general relativity leads to perspectives which go far beyond the vision of its creator. Many of these insights came to light...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inResonance Vol. 26; no. 1; pp. 47 - 60
Main Author Samuel, Joseph
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Dordrecht Springer Nature B.V 01.01.2021
Subjects
Theory of relativity
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ISSN0971-8044
0973-712X
DOI10.1007/s12045-020-1104-x

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Summary:Einstein’s genius and penetrating physical intuition led to the general theory of relativity, which incorporates gravity into the geometry of spacetime. However, the theory of general relativity leads to perspectives which go far beyond the vision of its creator. Many of these insights came to light only after Einstein’s death in 1955. These developments were due to a new breed of relativists, like Penrose, Hawking and Geroch, who approached the subject with a higher degree of mathematical sophistication than earlier workers. Some of these insights were made possible because of work by Amal Kumar Raychaudhuri (AKR) who derived an equation which turned out to be a key ingredient in the singularity theorems of general relativity. This article explains AKR’s work in elementary terms.
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ISSN:0971-8044
0973-712X
DOI:10.1007/s12045-020-1104-x