Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Author Addresses
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Exact and inexact solutions of the Einstein field equations
- 3 Inertial forces in general relativity
- 4 Relativistic radiation hydrodynamics: a covariant theory of flux-limiters
- 5 Relativistic gravitational collapse
- 6 The cosmic censorship hypothesis
- 7 The Kerr metric: a gateway to the roots of gravity?
- 8 Galactic astronomy since 1950
- 9 Galaxy distribution functions
- 10 Nonlinear galaxy clustering
- 11 Quasars: progress and prospects
- 12 Decaying neutrinos in astronomy and cosmology
- 13 Cosmological principles
- 14 Anisotropic and inhomogeneous cosmologies
- 15 Mach's principle and isotropic singularities
- 16 Implications of superconductivity in cosmic string theory
- 17 The formation and evaporation of primordial black holes
- 18 Evaporation of two dimensional black holes
- 19 Topology and topology change in general relativity
- 20 Decoherence of the cluttered quantum vacuum
- 21 Quantum non-locality and complex reality
- 22 The different levels of connections between science and objective reality
6 - The cosmic censorship hypothesis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Author Addresses
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Exact and inexact solutions of the Einstein field equations
- 3 Inertial forces in general relativity
- 4 Relativistic radiation hydrodynamics: a covariant theory of flux-limiters
- 5 Relativistic gravitational collapse
- 6 The cosmic censorship hypothesis
- 7 The Kerr metric: a gateway to the roots of gravity?
- 8 Galactic astronomy since 1950
- 9 Galaxy distribution functions
- 10 Nonlinear galaxy clustering
- 11 Quasars: progress and prospects
- 12 Decaying neutrinos in astronomy and cosmology
- 13 Cosmological principles
- 14 Anisotropic and inhomogeneous cosmologies
- 15 Mach's principle and isotropic singularities
- 16 Implications of superconductivity in cosmic string theory
- 17 The formation and evaporation of primordial black holes
- 18 Evaporation of two dimensional black holes
- 19 Topology and topology change in general relativity
- 20 Decoherence of the cluttered quantum vacuum
- 21 Quantum non-locality and complex reality
- 22 The different levels of connections between science and objective reality
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Those of us who had the privilege of being Dennis Sciama's students during what Hajicek has described as ‘the Golden Age of General Relativity’ can trace many of the current concerns of the subject back to the ideas which he fostered, either directly or indirectly, within his research group in Cambridge. This was the environment in which major contributions to most of the foundational ideas about singularities: from the controversies about the steady state and big bang theories; through the critique of the early Lifshitz-Khalatnikov arguments which at first suggested that the big bang singularity was not generic, leading to definitions of just what constituted a singularity; to the Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems themselves. The issue of cosmic censorship stemmed naturally from this work, and illustrates well the combination of rigorous mathematics with a firm hold on physical relevance which he established at that time. In this talk I shall try to give an outline of the historical work on cosmic censorship, focussing at the end on my own recent work on shell crossing singularities. I shall not be concerned with what George Ellis, in this meeting, has termed the position of the goal posts — the details of exactly what the target is; rather, I shall be arguing that we should in fact be playing a different game.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Renaissance of General Relativity and CosmologyA Survey to Celebrate the 65th Birthday of Dennis Sciama, pp. 86 - 99Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1993