Sticky bead argument
Encyclopedia
In general relativity
, the sticky bead argument is a simple thought experiment
designed to show that gravitational radiation is indeed predicted by general relativity
, and can have physical effects. These claims were not widely accepted prior to about 1955, but after the introduction of the bead argument
, any remaining doubts soon disappeared from the research literature.
The argument is often credited to Hermann Bondi
, who popularized it, but it was apparently originally proposed anonymously by Richard Feynman
.
, North Carolina
. His insight was that a passing gravitational wave should in principle cause a bead on a stick (with the stick parallel to the wave velocity) to slide back and forth, thus heating the bead and the stick by friction
. A gravitational wave pulse will stretch spacetime behind the bead, pushing the bead forward; after the wave passes through the bead the stretching will occur in front of the bead, accelerating the bead in the opposite direction. This heating, said Feynman, showed that the wave did indeed impart energy to the bead and stick system, so it must indeed transport energy.
, argued in 1916 that gravitational radiation should be produced, according to his theory, by any mass-energy configuration which has a time-varying quadrupole moment (or higher multipole moment). Using a linearized field equation (appropriate for the study of weak gravitational fields), he derived the famous quadrupole radiation formula quantifying the rate at which such radiation should carry away energy. Examples of systems with time varying quadrupole moments include vibrating strings, bars rotating about an axis perpendicular to the symmetry axis of the bar, and binary star systems, but not rotating disks.
In 1922, Arthur Stanley Eddington
wrote a paper expressing (apparently for the first time) the view that gravitational waves are in essence ripples in coordinates, and have no physical meaning. He did not appreciate Einstein's arguments that the waves are real.
In 1936, together with Nathan Rosen
, Einstein rediscovered the Beck vacuums, a family of exact gravitational wave solutions with cylindrical symmetry (sometimes also called Einstein-Rosen waves). While investigating the motion of test particles in these solutions, Einstein and Rosen became convinced that gravitational waves were unstable to collapse. Einstein reversed himself and declared that gravitational radiation was not after all a prediction of his theory. Einstein wrote to his friend Max Born
In other words, Einstein believed that he and Rosen had established that their new argument showed that the prediction of gravitational radiation was a mathematical artifact of the linear approximation he had employed in 1916. Einstein believed these plane waves would gravitationally collapse into points; he had long hoped something like this would explain quantum mechanical wave-particle duality.
Einstein and Rosen accordingly submitted a paper entitled Do gravitational waves exist? to a leading physics journal, the Physical Review
, in which they described their wave solutions and concluded that the "radiation" which seemed to appear in general relativity was not genuine radiation capable of transporting energy or having (in principle) measurable physical effects. The anonymous referee, who—as the current editor of the Physical Review recently confirmed, all parties now being deceased—was the combative cosmologist, Howard Percy Robertson
, pointed out the error described below, and the manuscript was returned to the authors with a note from the editor asking them to revise the paper to address these concerns. Quite uncharacteristically, Einstein took this criticism very badly, angrily replying "I see no reason to address the, in any case erroneous, opinion expressed by your referee." He vowed never again to submit a paper to the Physical Review. Instead, Einstein and Rosen resubmitted the paper without change to another and much less well known journal, the Journal of the Franklin Institute. He kept his vow regarding the Physical Review.
Leopold Infeld
, who arrived at Princeton University
at this time, later remembered his utter astonishment on hearing of this development, since radiation is such an essential element for any classical field theory
worthy of the name. Infeld expressed his doubts to a leading expert on general relativity: H. P. Robertson, who had just returned from a visit to Caltech. Going over the argument as Infeld remembered it (apparently from a conversation with Einstein), Robertson was able to show Infeld the mistake: locally, the Einstein-Rosen waves are gravitational plane wave
s (which had been studied earlier by O. R. Baldwin and George Barker Jeffery
, and even earlier by Hans W. Brinkmann). Einstein and Rosen had correctly shown that a cloud of test particles would, in sinusoidal plane waves, form caustic
s, but changing to another chart (essentially the Brinkmann coordinates
) shows that the formation of the caustic is not a contradiction at all, but in fact just what one would expect in this situation. Infeld then approached Einstein, who concurred with this analysis (still not knowing it was him who reviewed the Physical Review submission).
Since Rosen had recently departed for the Soviet Union, Einstein acted alone in promptly and thoroughly revising their joint paper. This third version was retitled On gravitational waves, and, following Robertson's suggestion of a transformation to cylindrical coordinates, presented what are now called Einstein-Rosen cylindrical waves (these are locally isometric to plane waves). This is the version which eventually appeared. However, Rosen was unhappy with this revision and eventually published his own version, which retained the erroneous "disproof" of the prediction of gravitational radiation.
In a letter to the editor of the Physical Review, Robertson wryly reported that in the end, Einstein had fully accepted the objections which had initially so upset him.
was held in Bern, the Swiss town where Einstein was working in the famous patent office during the Annus mirabilis
. Rosen attended and gave a talk in which he computed the Einstein pseudotensor and Landau-Lifschitz pseudotensor (two alternative, non-covariant, descriptions of the energy carried by a gravitational field, a notion which is notoriously difficult to pin down in general relativity). These turn out to be zero for the Einstein-Rosen waves, and Rosen argued that this reaffirmed the negative conclusion he had reached with Einstein in 1936.
However, by this time a few physicists, such as Felix A. E. Pirani and Ivor Robinson, had come to appreciate the role played by curvature in producing tidal accelerations, and were able to convince many peers that gravitational radiation would indeed be produced, at least in cases such as a vibrating spring where different pieces of the system were clearly not in inertia
l motion. Nonetheless, some physicists continued to doubt whether radiation would be produced by a binary star system, where the world line
s of the centers of mass
of the two stars should, according to EIH approximation (dating from 1938 and due to Einstein, Infeld, and Banesh Hoffmann
), follow timelike geodesics.
Inspired by conversations by Felix Pirani, Hermann Bondi took up the study of gravitational radiation, in particular the question of quantifying the energy and momentum carried off 'to infinity' by a radiating system. During the next few years, Bondi developed the Bondi radiating chart and the notion of Bondi energy to rigorously study this question in maximal generality.
In 1957, at a conference at Chapel Hill
, North Carolina
, appealing to various mathematical tools developed by John Lighton Synge
, A. Z. Petrov and André Lichnerowicz
, Pirani explained more clearly than had previously been possible the central role played by the Riemann tensor and in particular the tidal tensor
in general relativity. He gave the first correct description of the relative (tidal) acceleration of initially mutually static test particles which encounter a sinusoidal gravitational plane wave.
— who had insisted on registering under a pseudonym to express his disdain for the contemporary state of gravitational physics — used Pirani's description to point out that a passing gravitational wave should in principle cause a bead on a stick (oriented parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave) to slide back and forth, thus heating the bead and the stick by friction
. This heating, said Feynman, showed that the wave did indeed impart energy to the bead and stick system, so it must indeed transport energy, contrary to the view expressed in 1955 by Rosen.
In two 1957 papers, Bondi and (separately) Joseph Weber
and John Archibald Wheeler
used this bead argument to present detailed refutations of Rosen's argument.
General relativity
General 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...
, the sticky bead argument is a simple thought experiment
Thought experiment
A thought experiment or Gedankenexperiment considers some hypothesis, theory, or principle for the purpose of thinking through its consequences...
designed to show that gravitational radiation is indeed predicted by general relativity
General relativity
General 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...
, and can have physical effects. These claims were not widely accepted prior to about 1955, but after the introduction of the bead argument
Argument
In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...
, any remaining doubts soon disappeared from the research literature.
The argument is often credited to Hermann Bondi
Hermann Bondi
Sir Hermann Bondi, KCB, FRS was an Anglo-Austrian mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady-state theory of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the Big Bang theory, but his most lasting legacy will probably be his important...
, who popularized it, but it was apparently originally proposed anonymously by Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
.
Description of the thought experiment
The thought experiment was first described by Feynman (under the pseudonym "Mr. Smith") in 1957, at a conference at Chapel HillChapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
. His insight was that a passing gravitational wave should in principle cause a bead on a stick (with the stick parallel to the wave velocity) to slide back and forth, thus heating the bead and the stick by friction
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...
. A gravitational wave pulse will stretch spacetime behind the bead, pushing the bead forward; after the wave passes through the bead the stretching will occur in front of the bead, accelerating the bead in the opposite direction. This heating, said Feynman, showed that the wave did indeed impart energy to the bead and stick system, so it must indeed transport energy.
Einstein's double reversal
The creator of the theory of general relativity, Albert EinsteinAlbert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...
, argued in 1916 that gravitational radiation should be produced, according to his theory, by any mass-energy configuration which has a time-varying quadrupole moment (or higher multipole moment). Using a linearized field equation (appropriate for the study of weak gravitational fields), he derived the famous quadrupole radiation formula quantifying the rate at which such radiation should carry away energy. Examples of systems with time varying quadrupole moments include vibrating strings, bars rotating about an axis perpendicular to the symmetry axis of the bar, and binary star systems, but not rotating disks.
In 1922, Arthur Stanley Eddington
Arthur Stanley Eddington
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. He was also a philosopher of science and a popularizer of science...
wrote a paper expressing (apparently for the first time) the view that gravitational waves are in essence ripples in coordinates, and have no physical meaning. He did not appreciate Einstein's arguments that the waves are real.
In 1936, together with Nathan Rosen
Nathan Rosen
Nathan Rosen was an American-Israeli physicist noted for his study on the structure of the hydrogen molecule and his work with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky on entangled wave functions and the EPR paradox.-Background:Nathan Rosen was born into a Jewish family in Brooklyn, New York...
, Einstein rediscovered the Beck vacuums, a family of exact gravitational wave solutions with cylindrical symmetry (sometimes also called Einstein-Rosen waves). While investigating the motion of test particles in these solutions, Einstein and Rosen became convinced that gravitational waves were unstable to collapse. Einstein reversed himself and declared that gravitational radiation was not after all a prediction of his theory. Einstein wrote to his friend Max Born
Max Born
Max Born was a German-born physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s...
Together with a young collaborator, I arrived at the interesting result that gravitational waves do not exist, though they had been assumed a certainty to the first approximation. This shows that the nonlinear field equations can show us more, or rather limit us more, than we have believed up till now.
In other words, Einstein believed that he and Rosen had established that their new argument showed that the prediction of gravitational radiation was a mathematical artifact of the linear approximation he had employed in 1916. Einstein believed these plane waves would gravitationally collapse into points; he had long hoped something like this would explain quantum mechanical wave-particle duality.
Einstein and Rosen accordingly submitted a paper entitled Do gravitational waves exist? to a leading physics journal, the Physical Review
Physical Review
Physical Review is an American scientific journal founded in 1893 by Edward Nichols. It publishes original research and scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical Society. The journal is in its third series, and is split in several...
, in which they described their wave solutions and concluded that the "radiation" which seemed to appear in general relativity was not genuine radiation capable of transporting energy or having (in principle) measurable physical effects. The anonymous referee, who—as the current editor of the Physical Review recently confirmed, all parties now being deceased—was the combative cosmologist, Howard Percy Robertson
Howard Percy Robertson
Howard Percy Robertson was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle...
, pointed out the error described below, and the manuscript was returned to the authors with a note from the editor asking them to revise the paper to address these concerns. Quite uncharacteristically, Einstein took this criticism very badly, angrily replying "I see no reason to address the, in any case erroneous, opinion expressed by your referee." He vowed never again to submit a paper to the Physical Review. Instead, Einstein and Rosen resubmitted the paper without change to another and much less well known journal, the Journal of the Franklin Institute. He kept his vow regarding the Physical Review.
Leopold Infeld
Leopold Infeld
Leopold Infeld was a Polish physicist who worked mainly in Poland and Canada . He was a Rockefeller fellow at Cambridge University and a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences....
, who arrived at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
at this time, later remembered his utter astonishment on hearing of this development, since radiation is such an essential element for any classical field theory
Classical field theory
A classical field theory is a physical theory that describes the study of how one or more physical fields interact with matter. The word 'classical' is used in contrast to those field theories that incorporate quantum mechanics ....
worthy of the name. Infeld expressed his doubts to a leading expert on general relativity: H. P. Robertson, who had just returned from a visit to Caltech. Going over the argument as Infeld remembered it (apparently from a conversation with Einstein), Robertson was able to show Infeld the mistake: locally, the Einstein-Rosen waves are gravitational plane wave
Gravitational plane wave
In general relativity, a gravitational plane wave is a special class of a vacuum pp-wave spacetime, and may be defined in terms of Brinkmann coordinates byds^2=[a+2bxy]du^2+2dudv+dx^2+dy^2...
s (which had been studied earlier by O. R. Baldwin and George Barker Jeffery
George Barker Jeffery
George Barker Jeffery was a leading mathematical physicist in the early twentieth century. He is probably best known to the scientifically literate public as the translator of papers by Einstein, Lorentz, and other fathers of relativity theory .-Career:Jeffery was born in 1891 and educated at...
, and even earlier by Hans W. Brinkmann). Einstein and Rosen had correctly shown that a cloud of test particles would, in sinusoidal plane waves, form caustic
Caustic (mathematics)
In differential geometry and geometric optics, a caustic is the envelope of rays either reflected or refracted by a manifold. It is related to the optical concept of caustics...
s, but changing to another chart (essentially the Brinkmann coordinates
Brinkmann coordinates
Brinkmann coordinates are a particular coordinate system for a spacetime belonging to the family of pp-wave metrics. In terms of these coordinates, the metric tensor can be written asds^2 \, = H du^2 + 2 du dv + dx^2 + dy^2...
) shows that the formation of the caustic is not a contradiction at all, but in fact just what one would expect in this situation. Infeld then approached Einstein, who concurred with this analysis (still not knowing it was him who reviewed the Physical Review submission).
Since Rosen had recently departed for the Soviet Union, Einstein acted alone in promptly and thoroughly revising their joint paper. This third version was retitled On gravitational waves, and, following Robertson's suggestion of a transformation to cylindrical coordinates, presented what are now called Einstein-Rosen cylindrical waves (these are locally isometric to plane waves). This is the version which eventually appeared. However, Rosen was unhappy with this revision and eventually published his own version, which retained the erroneous "disproof" of the prediction of gravitational radiation.
In a letter to the editor of the Physical Review, Robertson wryly reported that in the end, Einstein had fully accepted the objections which had initially so upset him.
The Bern and Chapel Hill conferences
In 1955, an important conference honoring the semi-centennial of special relativitySpecial relativity
Special relativity is the physical theory of measurement in an inertial frame of reference proposed in 1905 by Albert Einstein in the paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies".It generalizes Galileo's...
was held in Bern, the Swiss town where Einstein was working in the famous patent office during the Annus mirabilis
Annus mirabilis
Annus mirabilis is a Latin phrase meaning "wonderful year" or "year of wonders" . It was used originally to refer to the year 1666, but is today also used to refer to different years with events of major importance...
. Rosen attended and gave a talk in which he computed the Einstein pseudotensor and Landau-Lifschitz pseudotensor (two alternative, non-covariant, descriptions of the energy carried by a gravitational field, a notion which is notoriously difficult to pin down in general relativity). These turn out to be zero for the Einstein-Rosen waves, and Rosen argued that this reaffirmed the negative conclusion he had reached with Einstein in 1936.
However, by this time a few physicists, such as Felix A. E. Pirani and Ivor Robinson, had come to appreciate the role played by curvature in producing tidal accelerations, and were able to convince many peers that gravitational radiation would indeed be produced, at least in cases such as a vibrating spring where different pieces of the system were clearly not in inertia
Inertia
Inertia is the resistance of any physical object to a change in its state of motion or rest, or the tendency of an object to resist any change in its motion. It is proportional to an object's mass. The principle of inertia is one of the fundamental principles of classical physics which are used to...
l motion. Nonetheless, some physicists continued to doubt whether radiation would be produced by a binary star system, where the world line
World line
In physics, the world line of an object is the unique path of that object as it travels through 4-dimensional spacetime. The concept of "world line" is distinguished from the concept of "orbit" or "trajectory" by the time dimension, and typically encompasses a large area of spacetime wherein...
s of the centers of mass
Center of mass
In physics, the center of mass or barycenter of a system is the average location of all of its mass. In the case of a rigid body, the position of the center of mass is fixed in relation to the body...
of the two stars should, according to EIH approximation (dating from 1938 and due to Einstein, Infeld, and Banesh Hoffmann
Banesh Hoffmann
Banesh Hoffmann was a British mathematician and physicist known for his association with Albert Einstein.-Life:Banesh Hoffmann was born in Richmond, England, on 6 September 1906...
), follow timelike geodesics.
Inspired by conversations by Felix Pirani, Hermann Bondi took up the study of gravitational radiation, in particular the question of quantifying the energy and momentum carried off 'to infinity' by a radiating system. During the next few years, Bondi developed the Bondi radiating chart and the notion of Bondi energy to rigorously study this question in maximal generality.
In 1957, at a conference at Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Chapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
, appealing to various mathematical tools developed by John Lighton Synge
John Lighton Synge
John Lighton Synge was an Irish mathematician and physicist.-Background:Synge was born 1897 in Dublin, Ireland, in a Protestant family and educated at St. Andrew's College, Dublin. He entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1915...
, A. Z. Petrov and André Lichnerowicz
André Lichnerowicz
André Lichnerowicz was a noted French differential geometer and mathematical physicist of Polish descent.-Biography:...
, Pirani explained more clearly than had previously been possible the central role played by the Riemann tensor and in particular the tidal tensor
Electrogravitic tensor
In general relativity, the tidal tensor or gravitoelectric tensor is one of the pieces in the Bel decomposition of the Riemann tensor. It is physically interpreted as giving the tidal stresses on small bits of a material object , or the tidal accelerations of a small cloud of test particles in a...
in general relativity. He gave the first correct description of the relative (tidal) acceleration of initially mutually static test particles which encounter a sinusoidal gravitational plane wave.
Feynman's argument
Later in the Chapel Hill conference, Richard FeynmanRichard Feynman
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics...
— who had insisted on registering under a pseudonym to express his disdain for the contemporary state of gravitational physics — used Pirani's description to point out that a passing gravitational wave should in principle cause a bead on a stick (oriented parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave) to slide back and forth, thus heating the bead and the stick by friction
Friction
Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:...
. This heating, said Feynman, showed that the wave did indeed impart energy to the bead and stick system, so it must indeed transport energy, contrary to the view expressed in 1955 by Rosen.
In two 1957 papers, Bondi and (separately) Joseph Weber
Joseph Weber
Joseph Weber was an American physicist. He gave the earliest public lecture on the principles behind the laser and the maser and developed the first gravitational wave detectors .-Early education:...
and John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler
John Archibald Wheeler was an American theoretical physicist who was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in explaining the basic principles behind nuclear fission...
used this bead argument to present detailed refutations of Rosen's argument.
Rosen's final views
Nathan Rosen continued to argue as late as the 1970s, on the basis of a supposed paradox involving the radiation reaction, that gravitational radiation is not in fact predicted by general relativity. His arguments were generally regarded as invalid, but in any case the sticky bead argument had by then long since convinced other physicists of the reality of the prediction of gravitational radiation.See also
- monochromatic electromagnetic plane waveMonochromatic electromagnetic plane waveIn general relativity, the monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave spacetime is the analog of the monochromatic plane waves known from Maxwell's theory...
and monochromatic gravitational plane wave, for a modern account of two exact solutions which should clarify the point which confused Einstein and Rosen in 1936, - pp-wave spacetimePp-wave spacetimeIn general relativity, the pp-wave spacetimes, or pp-waves for short, are an important family of exact solutions of Einstein's field equation. These solutions model radiation moving at the speed of light...
, for the Brinkmann gravitational wave solutions, - Gravitational plane waveGravitational plane waveIn general relativity, a gravitational plane wave is a special class of a vacuum pp-wave spacetime, and may be defined in terms of Brinkmann coordinates byds^2=[a+2bxy]du^2+2dudv+dx^2+dy^2...
, for the Baldwin-Jeffery gravitational plane wave solutions, - Brinkmann coordinatesBrinkmann coordinatesBrinkmann coordinates are a particular coordinate system for a spacetime belonging to the family of pp-wave metrics. In terms of these coordinates, the metric tensor can be written asds^2 \, = H du^2 + 2 du dv + dx^2 + dy^2...
and Rosen coordinates for the two coordinate charts, - Beck vacuums, for the Beck or Einstein-Rosen family of vacuum solutions,
- Cooperstock's Energy Localization HypothesisCooperstock's Energy Localization HypothesisIn physics, the Cooperstock's energy-localization hypothesis is a hypothesis proposed by Fred Cooperstock that in general relativity, energy only exists in regions of non-vanishing energy–momentum tensor....
, for a conflicting hypothesis (potentially, therefore, a test).