Generalized Rotation

Abstract

In the preceding five chapters of this book we have been concerned with the effects produced by uni-axial rotation on the shape of self-gravitating fluids of arbitrary structure. There was a good reason for that; for all stars observed so far in the sky, whether single or components of multiple systems, are found to be endowed with rotation—no doubt as a consequence of the vorticity in pre-existing gas (or plasma), from which the stars originate by contraction. The angular momentum associated with rotation—conserved over long evolutionary epochs—represents as fundamental a property with which stars embark on their celestial careers as their initial masses and chemical composition.