Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: E. T. Bell & 2-body problem in GR



In around 1963, a graduate student of John A. Wheeler at Princeton
University by the name of CHARLES LINDQUIST (?perhaps LUNDQUIST - it's been
a few years!) did a Ph.D. thesis on the two-body problem in
geometrodynamics. He did what was, I believe, the earliest numerical
treatment of two Scharzschild external solutions (that's the solution of
the Einstein field equations for the gravitational field -- i.e., the
curved spacetime -- around a spherically symmetric mass) orbiting around
each other. The numerical techniques at the time, plus the limited memory
and speed of the computers at that time, made it difficult to get very
far, other than to note that something like gravitational waves were
starting to show up. His calculations, if memory serves me right,
followed the two objects for only a fraction of one orbit. The exact title
of his thesis I do not remember at all, but it is available from
University Microfilms in Ann Arbor.