Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-2xdlg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-01T19:15:16.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Toward a Thesis Topic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2010

B. L. Hu
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
M. P. Ryan, Jr
Affiliation:
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México
C. V. Vishveshwara
Affiliation:
Indian Institute of Astrophysics, India
Get access

Summary

Of all obstacles to understanding the foundations of physics, it is difficult to point to one more challenging than the question, “How Come the Quantum?” unless it be the twin question, “How Come Existence?” Stuck, but studying every available clue, (Box 1), from the papers of Bohr, Einstein, Planck and Schrödinger to the thoughts of the presocratic philosophers, (Box 2), I remember one of the great messages I have received from sixtyfive years of research: Why does a university have students? To teach the professsors! Not least in convincing me of that lesson is the wealth of learning that I owe to Charles W. Misner, graduate student at Princeton University from 1953 to 1957.

Already from the time Misner dropped into my office to talk about a conceivable thesis topic, I gained a vivid impression of what it was to see his active mind at work comparing researchable issues in elementary particle physics and in general relativity. “What is timely and tractable?” That is the proper criterion of choice, according to John R. Pierce, that great guide of productive research at Bell Telephone Laboratories and animating spirit of the travelling-wave tube and the Tel Star satellite.

Charles Misner, so far as I could see, used the same criterion in making his decision. It led to a Ph.D. thesis and a 1957 paper in the Reviews of Modern Physics, entitled “Feynman quantization of general relativity,” forerunner to the great and influential 1962 paper of R. Arnowitt, S. Deser and Misner on the “Dynamics of General Relativity.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Directions in General Relativity
Proceedings of the 1993 International Symposium, Maryland: Papers in Honor of Charles Misner
, pp. 396 - 401
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1993

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×