Brandon Carter (born 1942) is an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
theoretical physicistTheoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics in an attempt to explain natural phenomena. Its central core is mathematical physics,[Sometimes mathematical physics and theoretical physics are used synonymously to refer to the...]
, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the
anthropic principleIn physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the collective name for several ways of asserting that physical and chemical theories, especially astrophysics and cosmology, need to take into account that there is life on Earth, and that one form of that life, Homo sapiens, has attained...
in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at the
MeudonMeudon is a municipality in the south-western suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...
campus of the Laboratoire Univers et Théories, part of the CNRS.
After studying at
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
under
Dennis SciamaDennis William Siahou Sciama FRS was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He is considerd as one of the fathers of modern cosmology.-Life:Sciama was born in Manchester, England...
, Carter made several important contributions to the
golden age of general relativityThe Golden Age of General Relativity is the period roughly from 1960 to 1975 during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics...
. He found the exact solution of the geodesic equations for the
Kerr/Newman electrovacuum solutionThe Kerr-Newman metric is a solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations in general relativity, describing the spacetime geometry in the region surrounding a charged, rotating mass. It is assumed that the cosmological constant equals zero...
, and the maximal analytic extension of this solution.
Brandon Carter (born 1942) is an
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
n
theoretical physicistTheoretical physics is a branch of physics which employs mathematical models and abstractions of physics in an attempt to explain natural phenomena. Its central core is mathematical physics,[Sometimes mathematical physics and theoretical physics are used synonymously to refer to the...]
, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the
anthropic principleIn physics and cosmology, the anthropic principle is the collective name for several ways of asserting that physical and chemical theories, especially astrophysics and cosmology, need to take into account that there is life on Earth, and that one form of that life, Homo sapiens, has attained...
in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at the
MeudonMeudon is a municipality in the south-western suburbs of Paris, France. It is in the département of Hauts-de-Seine. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:...
campus of the Laboratoire Univers et Théories, part of the CNRS.
After studying at
CambridgeThe city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. It is also at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen....
under
Dennis SciamaDennis William Siahou Sciama FRS was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He is considerd as one of the fathers of modern cosmology.-Life:Sciama was born in Manchester, England...
, Carter made several important contributions to the
golden age of general relativityThe Golden Age of General Relativity is the period roughly from 1960 to 1975 during which the study of general relativity, which had previously been regarded as something of a curiosity, entered the mainstream of theoretical physics...
. He found the exact solution of the geodesic equations for the
Kerr/Newman electrovacuum solutionThe Kerr-Newman metric is a solution of the Einstein-Maxwell equations in general relativity, describing the spacetime geometry in the region surrounding a charged, rotating mass. It is assumed that the cosmological constant equals zero...
, and the maximal analytic extension of this solution. In the process, he discovered the extraordinary
fourth constant of motionThe Carter constant is a physical constant first formulated by Australian theoretical physicist Brandon Carter.-What it is:Any object orbiting a black hole can expect a chaotic ride...
and the Killing-Yano tensor. Together with
Werner IsraelWerner Israel, OC, FRSC, FRS is a Canadian physicist.Born in Berlin, Germany and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, he received his B.Sc. in 1951 and his M.Sc. in 1954 from the University of Cape Town. He received his Ph.D...
and
Stephen HawkingStephen William Hawking, CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA is a British theoretical physicist. He is known for his contributions to the fields of cosmology and quantum gravity, especially in the context of black holes...
, he proved the no-hair theorem in
general relativityGeneral relativity or the general theory of relativity is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1916. It is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. It unifies special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation, and describes gravity as a...
, stating that all stationary
black holeIn general relativity, a black hole is a region of space in which the gravitational field is so powerful that nothing, not even light, can escape. The black hole has a one-way surface, called an event horizon, into which objects can fall, but out of which nothing can come...
s are completely characterized by
massIn physics, mass commonly refers to any of three properties of matter, which have been shown experimentally to be equivalent: inertial mass, active gravitational mass and passive gravitational mass...
,
charge-In mathematics, science, and technology:* Charge , the air and/or fuel mixture being fed to an internal combustion engine* Charge , the susceptibility of a body to one of the fundamental forces...
, and
angular momentumAngular momentum is a quantity that is useful in describing the rotational state of a physical system. For a rigid body rotating around an axis of symmetry , the angular momentum can be expressed as the product of the body's moment of inertia and its angular velocity...
. More recently, Carter, Chachoua, and Chamel (2005) have formulated a relativistic theory of elastic deformations in
neutron starA neutron star is a type of remnant that can result from the gravitational collapse of a massive star during a Type II, Type Ib or Type Ic supernova event. Such stars are composed almost entirely of neutrons, which are subatomic particles without electrical charge and roughly the same mass as protons...
s.
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