Abstract
John Archibald Wheeler was born on July 9, 1911, in Jacksonville, Florida, and passed away on April 13, 2008, in Hightstown, New Jersey; his influence on gravitational physics and science in general will remain forever. Among his many and important contributions to physics, he was one of the fathers of the renaissance of General Relativity. After a golden starting age of General Relativity, a few years after the Einstein’s papers of 1915–1916, Einstein’s gravitational theory was for many years, to quote the preface of a 1960 book of General Relativity [1], confined to “an ivory tower…and no doubt many a relativist looks forward to the day when the governments will seek his opinion on important questions”.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Synge, J. L., “Relativity: the General Theory”, (North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1960).
Misner, C. W., Thorne, K. S., and Wheeler, J. A., “Gravitation”, (Freeman, San Francisco, 1973).
Wheeler, J. A., “On the Nature of Quantum Geometrodynamics”, Ann. Phys. 2, 604–614 (1957).
Will, C. M., “The confrontation between general relativity and experiment”, Living Rev. Rel. 9, 3 (2006); http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-20063 http://www.gr-qc/0510072).
Riess, A., et al., “Observational evidence from supernovae for an accelerating universe and a cosmological constant”, Astron. J. 116, 1009–1038 (1998).
Perlmutter, S., “Supernovae, dark energy, and the accelerating universe”, Phys. Today 56, 53–59 (2003).
Caldwell, R. R., “Dark energy”, Phys. World 17, 37–42 (2004).
Will, C. M., “Theory and Experiment in Gravitational Physics”, 2nd edn (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK, 1993).
Bondi, H., “Gravitational Waves”, in “Evidence for Gravitational Theories”, Møller, C., Editor (Academic Press, New York, 1961).
Morgan, T. and Bondi, H., “Transfer of energy in general relativity”, Royal Society of London Proceedings Series A 320 277–287 (1970).
Ehlers, J. and Walker, M., “Gravitational radiation and the ‘quadrupole’ formula - Report of Workshop A1”, in “General Relativity and Gravitation Conference”, Bertotti, B., de Felice, F. and Pascolini, A., Editors, 125–137, (Springer, Berlin, 1984).
Herrmann, F., Hinder, I., Shoemaker, D.M., Laguna, P., and Matzner, Richard A., “Binary black holes: Spin dynamics and gravitational recoil”, Phys. Rev. D76, 084032 (2007).
Campanelli, M., Lousto, C.O., Zlochower, Y., and Merritt, D., “Maximum Gravitational Recoil”, Phys. Rev. Lett., 98 231102 (2007).
Weber, J., “General relativity and gravitational waves”, Interscience Tracts on Physics and Astronomy (New York: Interscience, (1961).
Ciufolini, I. and Wheeler, J.A., “Gravitation and Inertia”, (Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1995).
Wheeler, J. A., “Mach’s Principle as Boundary Condition for Einstein’s equations”, in “Gravitation and Relativity”, Chiu, H. Y. and Hoffman, W. F., eds. (Benjanmin, New York, 1964) 303–349.
Ciufolini, I., “Dragging of Inertial Frames”, Nature, 449, 41–47 (2007).
Einstein, A., “Letter to Ernst Mach”, Zurich, 25 June 1913, in ref. [2] p. 544.
Thorne, K. S., Price, R. H. and MacDonald, D. A., “Black Holes, the Membrane Paradigm” (Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1986).
Ciufolini, I. and Pavlis, E. C., “A confirmation of the general relativistic prediction of the Lense-Thirring effect”, Nature, 431, 958–960, (2004).
Ries, J.C., Eanes, R.J., and Watkins., M. M., “Confirming the Frame-Dragging Effect with Satellite Laser Ranging”, 16th International Workshop on Laser Ranging, Poznan, Poland, 13–17 October 2008.
Pugh, G. E., “Proposal for a Satellite Test of the Coriolis Prediction of General Relativity”, Weapons Systems Evaluation Group Research Memorandum N. 11 (The Pentagon, Washington, 1959).
Schiff, L. I., “Motion of a Gyroscope According to Einstein’s Theory of Gravitation”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 46, 871–82 (1960) and “Possible New Test of General Relativity Theory”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 4, 215-7 (1960).
Ciufolini, I., “Measurement of the Lense-Thirring drag on high-altitude laser-ranged artificial satellites”, Phys. Rev. Lett. 56, 278–281 (1986).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ciufolini, I., Matzner, R. (2010). Introduction to General Relativity and John Archibald Wheeler. In: Ciufolini, I., Matzner, R. (eds) General Relativity and John Archibald Wheeler. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, vol 367. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3735-0_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3735-0_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-3734-3
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-3735-0
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)