Statistics – Computation
Scientific paper
Oct 2003
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003cqgra..20.4503s&link_type=abstract
Classical and Quantum Gravity, Volume 20, Issue 20, pp. 4503-4504 (2003).
Statistics
Computation
Scientific paper
To a relativist, a time period equivalent to that of 60 orbits of the Earth around the Sun, or 5.676438379482·1019 cm of proper time, may not sound particularly significant. Yet, in our human society, it gives us the opportunity of honouring those we love and respect. Such was the occasion for the publication of this volume in honour of Professor Jiri Bicák of the Institute of Theoretical Physics at Charles University in Prague - a city in which Tycho Brahe and Kepler worked together, and where Einstein struggled to construct his general theory of relativity.
An appropriate, but unusual, celebratory event which was organized on the relevant January evening involved an intersection of interesting time-shifted worldlines. A record of this is available at http://astro.troja.mff.cuni.cz/bicak/, which may help in comprehending the preface. Our purpose here, however, is to comment on the more permanent item that was produced for the occasion.
It must immediately be stated that this is not a typical festschrift in which leading authorities around the world contribute articles dedicated to an academic colleague. It was a surprise present from past research students to their teacher. It maintains the character of a personal tribute but, basically, the contributions are research papers of the highest quality. The result is a very valuable academic reference. As Bicák would have wanted, this is a substantial contribution to objective science, not a piece of post-modern sentimentalism.
Reflecting Bicák's own wide interests, the different contributions to this volume cover specific topics in general relativity, astrophysics, theoretical physics and cosmology. They include original articles and thorough up-to-date reviews. In all cases, detailed mathematical or computational analysis is guided by requirements of physical significance.
The first paper is by Dolezel on observations from within slowly rotating voids in cosmological models and their compatibility with Mach's principle. Stuchlik has thoroughly reviewed the effect of a small cosmological constant on geodesic motion and the equipotential surfaces associated with the formation of accretion discs, and Karas, Subr and Slechta report some interesting results from their model for analysing the dynamics of a stellar cluster near a galactic centre with an accretion disc. Semerák has contributed a thorough and most useful review of exact models for realistic axially symmetric discs of matter around rotating spheroidal black holes. There is a paper by Hledik illustrating the use of optical reference geometry and embedding diagrams for analysing the properties of orbits about black holes, and Ledvinka has illustrated graphically what a rotating neutron star would actually look like to an observer. Podolsky has comprehensively reviewed exact expanding and non-expanding impulsive gravitational waves, describing the various ways they may be constructed and their global properties in Minkowski, de Sitter and anti-de Sitter backgrounds. The spinning C-metric is investigated by Pravda and Pravdová with a view to clarifying its physical interpretation as a pair of accelerating Kerr black holes, and Balek has described the properties of spacetimes that can be constructed by cutting and pasting parts of Minkowski space. The volume concludes with some remarks by Kopf on a functional approach to the renormalization of the stress-energy tensor in the semiclassical Einstein equations, and a review by Krtous of boundary quantum mechanics in which measurements at the initial and final moments in time are treated independently and which can be formulated without reference to causal structure. These are all valuable articles which deserve to be widely known.
Overall, this is a most impressive tribute to a leader in the academic study of gravitation, who has clearly inspired the generation after him and helped establish a thriving research community in his beautiful native city.
Jerry Griffiths
Podolsky Jiri
Semerak Oldřich
Zofka Martin
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