A computer analysis of some of the Harrison metrics
- Authors: Sadler, Christopher John
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Computer science -- Mathematics , Software measurement
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5427 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013151
- Description: In his paper B.K.Harrison concludes with the observation that his "solutions ... are presented as raw material for further research in General Relativity". In the same spirit, the present work started out as an attempt to process that raw material in a production-line powered by a computer. Harrison's solutions uould be fed in at one end, and the finished product, as yet undecided, would appear at the other. In the event, however, the project became more like an exercise in quality control, to continue the analogy. A search was made for algebraic criteria which would distinguish between those solutions which were acceptable for further analysis with particular regard to Gravitational radiation, and those which were not. Regrettably, no criteria could be found which characterised radiative solutions unequivocally, and, at the same time, lent themselves to a computer approach. The result is that the discussion of radiative solutions has had to be relegated to an appendix (Appendix 1), while the main body of the work is concerned with the determination of those quantities (the Newman-Penrose scalars) which would seem to be the foundation of any future computer-based analysis of gravitational radiation. Chapter 1 is an account of the underlying mathematical formulation, defining the terms, concepts and processes involved. In Chapter 2 the transformation of some of the ideas of Chapter 1 into computer software is presented. Chapter 3 is concerned with the specific metrics (the Harrison metrics) and the extent to which they have heen processed. The project has leaned heavily on papers by Harrison for the "raw material", by D' Inverno and Russell Clark, who pioneered the techniques and classified the Harrison metrics, and by Sachs for the treatment of gravitational radiation. However, the analysis of diagonal metrics, the special tetrad of Chapter 2 and the results in Appendix 2 are new.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
- Authors: Sadler, Christopher John
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Computer science -- Mathematics , Software measurement
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5427 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013151
- Description: In his paper B.K.Harrison concludes with the observation that his "solutions ... are presented as raw material for further research in General Relativity". In the same spirit, the present work started out as an attempt to process that raw material in a production-line powered by a computer. Harrison's solutions uould be fed in at one end, and the finished product, as yet undecided, would appear at the other. In the event, however, the project became more like an exercise in quality control, to continue the analogy. A search was made for algebraic criteria which would distinguish between those solutions which were acceptable for further analysis with particular regard to Gravitational radiation, and those which were not. Regrettably, no criteria could be found which characterised radiative solutions unequivocally, and, at the same time, lent themselves to a computer approach. The result is that the discussion of radiative solutions has had to be relegated to an appendix (Appendix 1), while the main body of the work is concerned with the determination of those quantities (the Newman-Penrose scalars) which would seem to be the foundation of any future computer-based analysis of gravitational radiation. Chapter 1 is an account of the underlying mathematical formulation, defining the terms, concepts and processes involved. In Chapter 2 the transformation of some of the ideas of Chapter 1 into computer software is presented. Chapter 3 is concerned with the specific metrics (the Harrison metrics) and the extent to which they have heen processed. The project has leaned heavily on papers by Harrison for the "raw material", by D' Inverno and Russell Clark, who pioneered the techniques and classified the Harrison metrics, and by Sachs for the treatment of gravitational radiation. However, the analysis of diagonal metrics, the special tetrad of Chapter 2 and the results in Appendix 2 are new.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
Remarks on formalized arithmetic and subsystems thereof
- Brink, C
- Authors: Brink, C
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Gödel, Kurt , Logic, Symbolic and mathematical , Semantics (Philosophy) , Arithmetic -- Foundations , Number theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5424 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009752 , Gödel, Kurt , Logic, Symbolic and mathematical , Semantics (Philosophy) , Arithmetic -- Foundations , Number theory
- Description: In a famous paper of 1931, Gödel proved that any formalization of elementary Arithmetic is incomplete, in the sense that it contains statements which are neither provable nor disprovable. Some two years before this, Presburger proved that a mutilated system of Arithmetic, employing only addition but not multiplication, is complete. This essay is partly an exposition of a system such as Presburger's, and partly an attempt to gain insight into the source of the incompleteness of Arithmetic, by linking Presburger's result with Gödel's.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
- Authors: Brink, C
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Gödel, Kurt , Logic, Symbolic and mathematical , Semantics (Philosophy) , Arithmetic -- Foundations , Number theory
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5424 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1009752 , Gödel, Kurt , Logic, Symbolic and mathematical , Semantics (Philosophy) , Arithmetic -- Foundations , Number theory
- Description: In a famous paper of 1931, Gödel proved that any formalization of elementary Arithmetic is incomplete, in the sense that it contains statements which are neither provable nor disprovable. Some two years before this, Presburger proved that a mutilated system of Arithmetic, employing only addition but not multiplication, is complete. This essay is partly an exposition of a system such as Presburger's, and partly an attempt to gain insight into the source of the incompleteness of Arithmetic, by linking Presburger's result with Gödel's.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
Twistors in curved space
- Ward, R S (Richard Samuel), 1951-
- Authors: Ward, R S (Richard Samuel), 1951-
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Twistor theory , Space and time
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5429 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013472
- Description: From the Introduction, p. 1. During the past decade, the theory of twistors has been introduced and developed, primarily by Professor Roger Penrose, as part of a long-term program aimed at resolving certain difficulties in present-day physical theory. These difficulties include, firstly, the problem of combining quantum mechanics and general relativity, and, secondly, the question of whether the concept of a continuum is at all relevant to physics. Most models of space-time used in general relativity employ the idea of a manifold consisting of a continuum of points. This feature of the models has often been criticised, on the grounds that physical observations are essentially discrete in nature; for reasons that are mathematical, rather than physical, the gaps between these observations are filled in a continuous fashion (see, for example, Schrodinger (I), pp.26-31). Although analysis (in its generally accepted form) demands that quantities should take on a continuous range of values, physics, as such,does not make such a demand. The situation in quantum mechanics is not all that much better since, although some quantities such as angular momentum can only take on certain discrete values, one still has to deal with the complex continuum of probability amplitudes. From this point of view it would be desirable to have all physical laws expressed in terms of combinatorial mathematics, rather than in terms of (standard) analysis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
- Authors: Ward, R S (Richard Samuel), 1951-
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Twistor theory , Space and time
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:5429 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013472
- Description: From the Introduction, p. 1. During the past decade, the theory of twistors has been introduced and developed, primarily by Professor Roger Penrose, as part of a long-term program aimed at resolving certain difficulties in present-day physical theory. These difficulties include, firstly, the problem of combining quantum mechanics and general relativity, and, secondly, the question of whether the concept of a continuum is at all relevant to physics. Most models of space-time used in general relativity employ the idea of a manifold consisting of a continuum of points. This feature of the models has often been criticised, on the grounds that physical observations are essentially discrete in nature; for reasons that are mathematical, rather than physical, the gaps between these observations are filled in a continuous fashion (see, for example, Schrodinger (I), pp.26-31). Although analysis (in its generally accepted form) demands that quantities should take on a continuous range of values, physics, as such,does not make such a demand. The situation in quantum mechanics is not all that much better since, although some quantities such as angular momentum can only take on certain discrete values, one still has to deal with the complex continuum of probability amplitudes. From this point of view it would be desirable to have all physical laws expressed in terms of combinatorial mathematics, rather than in terms of (standard) analysis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1975
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