Quote of the Day

Children of light and children of darkness is the vision of physics that emerges from this chapter, as from other branches of physics. The children of light are the differential equations that predict the future from the present. The children of darkness are the factors that fix these initial conditions.

— Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, Gravitation (1973), p. 555.

12 Comments

12 thoughts on “Quote of the Day”

  1. It’s my experience that the MTW text invokes very different feellings among its readers – strong dislike vs. loving affection. I’m one of the aficianodos. When I study that book, I feel like the authors are sitting right there with me – guiding me and sharing something wonderful.

  2. What’s that famous quote about MTW, to the effect that it’s a good little book on GR buried within a big bad book on GR?

  3. I love MTW. I’m enormously grateful for the sheer enthusiasm and generosity of the authors, in the way they cover the foundations from so many angles. I can understand why some people find their approach too verbose, but for me it was helpful to have the same crucial points made from several different angles, so when I didn’t quite get it the first time, the second and the third finally drove it home.

    I do wish, though, that they’d resisted this sort of thing (p. 193):

    Wherein the reader is exposed to the charms of a new temptress — Modern Differential Geometry — and makes a decision: to embrace her for eight full chapters; or, having drunk his fill, to escape after one.

    and (p. 383):

    Wherein the reader is seduced into marriage with the most elegant temptress of all — Geometrodynamics — and learns from her the magic potions and incantations that control the universe.

    and (p. 1045):

    Wherein the reader is tempted by a harem of charming gravitation theories (and some not so charming), is saved from his foolish passions by an army of experiments, cleaves unto his faithful spouse, Geometrodynamics, vows to lead an honest life hereafter, and becomes a True Believer.

  4. I’ve always assumed that most of the rhetorical flourishes in MTW were due to ‘W’ — John Wheeler. In particular, I’ve assumed that he wrote Chapter 44, with little input from Misner and Thorne.

    (I’m with Greg Egan; I love the book.)

  5. Well, you could spend half of your life reading MTW, and the rest of it paying off the loan to buy it in the first place. (Unless you can rustle up a closed time-like curve and give it back when you’re finished…)

    Alternatively you could read Foster and Nightingale (could be done over a weekend) and then get further details in books by Rindler, Wald, or, dare I say it, Weinberg (also expensive, so perhaps I destroy my own argument – but at least there is no “lovey-dovey” relativity in there).

  6. |John R Ramsden

    @Greg Egan (#4) Of the three authors, wasn’t Wheeler the one inclined to wax lyrical? From those chapter headings, it sounds like he had been reading the Tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights.

    edit: Oops, I see Chris W made much the same point in #5. But he didn’t mention the Arabian Nights 😉

  7. It’s true that the source of the ICs is more mysterious than that of the equations, but that doesn’t mean that they are better understood. They are definitely not easier to know. It seems that the light and darkness are all relative anyway.

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