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    Mathematics of Relativity
    Mathematics of Relativity
    Mathematics of Relativity
    Ebook278 pages4 hours

    Mathematics of Relativity

    By George Yuri Rainich

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    Based on the ideas of Einstein and Minkowski, this concise treatment is derived from the author's many years of teaching the mathematics of relativity at the University of Michigan. Geared toward advanced undergraduates and graduate students of physics, the text covers old physics, new geometry, special relativity, curved space, and general relativity.
    Beginning with a discussion of the inverse square law in terms of simple calculus, the treatment gradually introduces increasingly complicated situations and more sophisticated mathematical tools. Changes in fundamental concepts, which characterize relativity theory, and the refinements of mathematical technique are incorporated as necessary. The presentation thus offers an easier approach without sacrifice of rigor.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateAug 20, 2014
    ISBN9780486798226
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      Mathematics of Relativity - George Yuri Rainich

      INDEX

      1

      OLD PHYSICS

      The purpose of this chapter is to reformulate some of the fundamental equations of mechanics and electrodynamics—specifically, to write them in a new form appropriate for the discussion that follows. The content of the chapter is classical; the modifications which are characteristic of the relativity theory have not been introduced, but the form is decidedly new.

      1.Motion of a particle. The inverse square law

      The fundamental equations of mechanics of a particle are usually written in the form

      Here m denotes the mass of the particle; x, y, z are functions of the time t, whose values are the coordinates of the particles at the corresponding time; and X, Y, Z are functions of the coordinates whose values are the components of the force at the corresponding point. This system of equations was the first example of what we may call mathematical physics, and much that is now mathematical physics may be conveniently considered a result of a development whose germ is the system 1.1. This chapter will be devoted to tracing out some lines of this development.

      We begin by writing equations 1.1 in the form

      where

      are the velocity components. The quantities

      are called the momentum components, and in this form our fundamental equations express the statement that the time rate of change of the momentum is equal to the force, the original statement of Newton. Equations 1.11 are seen to be equivalent to 1.1 if we use the notation 1.2 and the fact, usually tacitly assumed, that the mass of a particle does not change with time, or, in symbols, that

      In equations 1.1, x, y, z are usually unknown functions of the time, and X, Y, Z are given functions of the coordinates. The situation then is this: first the field has to be described by giving the forces X, Y, Z, and then the motion in the given field is determined by solving equations 1.1 (with some additional initial conditions).

      We shall first discuss fields of a certain simple type. One of the simplest fields of force is the so-called inverse square field. The field has a center, which is a singularity of the field; in it the field is not determined. In every other point of the field the force is directed toward the center (or away from it), and the magnitude of the force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance from the center. As the most common realization of such a field of force we may consider the gravitational field produced by a mass particle. If cartesian coordinates with the origin at the particle are introduced, the force components are

      Here r is the distance of the moving particle from the origin, so that

      and c is a coefficient of proportionality, negative when we have attraction and positive when we have repulsion (c depends on the mass of the particle producing the field and also on the mass of the particle on which the field acts, but at present we are not interested in these dependences). In order to show that 1.3 actually represents the inverse square law we form the sum of the squares of the components and find the result to be c²/r⁴, so that the magnitude of the force is c/r². If the field is produced by several attracting particles the force at every point (outside of the points where the particles are located) is considered to be given by the sum of the forces due to the separate particles. In these circumstances the expressions become quite complicated, and it is easier to study the general properties of such fields by using certain differential equations to which the force components are subjected rather than by studying the explicit expressions.

      These differential equations are as follows:

      The fact that the functions X, Y, Z, given by formulas 1.3, satisfy these equations may be proved by direct substitution. To facilitate calculation we may notice that differentiation of 1.4 gives

      Differentiating the first of equations 1.3, we have now

      Substituting this and two analogous expressions into 1.51 we easily verify it. The verification of 1.52 presents little difficulty.

      It is known that equations 1.52 state a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a function ϕ of which X, Y, Z are partial derivatives. The derivative ∂Х/∂х is then the second derivative of this function, and the system 1.51–1.52 may be replaced by the equivalent system

      The last equation is known as the equation of Laplace.

      In the particular case where X, Y, Z are given by the formulas 1.3, a function ϕ of which X, Y, Z are partial derivatives is (as it is easy to verify)

      We may say now that the field of force given by 1.3 satisfies the differential equations 1.51–1.52 (or 1.53–1.54, which express the same thing). We will show now that these equations are satisfied not only by the field due to one particle at the origin but also by that due to any number of particles: First, we notice that if a particle is not at the origin this results only in additive constants in the coordinates and so does not affect partial derivatives which appear in the equations 1.51–1.52; these equations therefore remain true. Second, these equations are linear and homogeneous, as a consequence of which the sum of two solutions of these equations necessarily is a solution; hence if two fields satisfy these equations their sum also satisfies them. If, then, as is generally assumed, the field produced by several particles is the sum of the fields due to the individual particles, such a field also satisfies equations 1.51–1.52.

      Conversely, it can be proved that any field satisfying the differential equations 1.51–1.52 may be produced by a finite, or infinite, set of particles each of which acts according to the inverse square law. We shall not prove this fact here (the proof is given in potential theory), but we shall show that these equations furnish us the inverse square law again, if we add the condition that the field is symmetric with respect to one point.

      A similar situation where we have to solve a system of partial differential equations with the additional condition of symmetry will appear again in Chapter 5, and in order to be clear about its significance it is desirable to treat this special case in detail here.

      The situation is this: We have a vector field, that is, we are given at each point P a vector vP, and we know that this field must not be affected by any rigid motion which does not affect a fixed point, namely the origin. In other words, if a rotation around the origin brings a point P into a point Q it must bring the vector vP into the vector vQ. Consider first a rotation around the axis OP. This rotation does not affect P. Therefore it must not affect the vector vP; this can be true only if the vector vP lies on the axis of rotation OP. The components X, Y, Z of vP must therefore be proportional to the coordinates x, y, z of the point P, so that we can write

      The proportionality factor λ may, of course, vary from point to point so that it is a function of the coordinates. Consider now a rotation that brings P into a point Q. Since this rotation brings vP into vQ these two vectors must have the same magnitude so that the quantity λ²(x² + y² + z²) = λ²r² must not be affected by the rotation; in other words, it must be the same for all points which can be brought into each other by a rotation around the origin, that is for all points which are at the same distance r from the origin. This means that λ²r², and therefore λ, can depend on r only. We have thus arrived at the result that to satisfy the condition of symmetry a vector field must be of the form 1.7, where λ is a function of r, and it is obvious that any field of this form is symmetric with respect to the origin.

      Next, we must impose the requirement that it satisfies the differential equations 1.51–1.52. Since r ∂r/∂x = x, so that ∂r/∂x = x/r, etc., we have

      where a prime denotes differentiation with respect to r. We see that equations 1.52 do not impose a new restriction on λ. But equation 1.51 gives

      or

      Hence λr³ = c, where с is a constant. Substituting λ = c/r³ into 1.7 we get 1.3.

      Exercise. Derive the result obtained in text by using the potential ϕ.

      We see that the general equations 1.51–1.52 give all the general information we need about the fields of force in question; we shall call this system the system of equations of a Newtonian field or simply the Newtonian system, although Newton never considered the differential equations that make it up.

      We may comment briefly on the mathematical character of the magnitudes and equations we have been dealing with in this section. At every point the quantities X, Y, Z may be considered as the components of a vector, the force vector; we have thus a vector at every point of space, and this constitutes a vector field. The function ϕ is an example of a scalar field. These two fields are related in a particular way; namely, the first is derived from the second by differentiation. The vector field satisfies equation 1.51, the left-hand member of which is called divergence of the vector field. To find a divergence of a vector field we form the sum of the derivatives of the components with respect to the corresponding coordinates. The formula for the divergence may be written more compactly by setting

      and writing the vector components as

      The expression for the divergence then becomes

      The operation of forming the divergence of a vector field is of fundamental importance for our subsequent development.

      We now leave the study of force fields temporarily and direct our attention to the left-hand members of the equations of motion.

      2.Two pictures of matter

      Our fundamental equations 1.1 connect matter, as represented by the left-hand members, with forces, as represented by the right-hand members. There seems to be a fundamental difference in the mathematical aspects of matter and force. The quantities characterizing matter, the momentum components, for example, are functions of one variable t and satisfy ordinary differential equations, whereas quantities X, Y, Z, characterizing force, are functions of three variables x, y, z and, as a consequence, are subjected to partial differential equations. The force components are field quantities, whereas the matter components are not. Another way of putting this is to say that force seems to be distributed continuously through space whereas matter is connected with discrete points. However, this distinction is not as essential as it looks; it is merely the result of the point of view we take. We could very well consider matter to be distributed continuously through space. Each of the two theories, the discrete theory, according to which matter consists of material points each of which carries a finite mass, and the continuous theory, according to which matter is distributed continuously through space, may be considered as the limiting case of the other. We may start with material points, then increase their number, at the same time decreasing the mass of each, and so approximate with any degree of precision a given continuous distribution. Or we may start with a continuous distribution, then make the density decrease everywhere except in the constantly decreasing neighborhoods of a discrete number of points, and thus approximate, with any precision, a given discrete distribution. It is clear that there cannot be any question as to which of the two theories is correct. Since the difference between them can be made as small as we please, the predictions based on the two theories can be made to agree as closely as we may wish; and, hence, if one identification is successful within experimental error, the other will be likewise. Mathematically the difference will be largely that between ordinary differential equations, which are used in treating the motion of discrete particles, and partial differential equations, which apply to continuous distributions.

      We may remark here that, although forces are usually considered to be continuously distributed in space, it is possible to introduce a discrete picture here also. This is actually being done sometimes in the electromagnetic theory when a field of force is represented by discrete lines of force and the intensity is characterized by the number of lines per square inch. We shall not, however, have occasion to use this picture.

      In quantum mechanics still a third point of view is taken which, in a way, occupies an intermediate position. Mathematically the treatment is that used in the continuous case (partial differential equations), but the interpretation is given in terms of discrete particles, the continuous quantities being considered as probabilities of a particle being within a certain volume, and the like. This point of view also will not be used in what follows but is mentioned here for the sake of completeness.

      We now wish to describe motion using the continuous picture of matter. We may begin by introducing a vector u, v, w which represents the velocity observed at a given point at a given time. Using the terminology introduced in the preceding section we shall speak of a vector field. And since this vector field depends also on time, u, v, w are functions of the coordinates and the time, which we may write as

      The connection between this vector and the velocity vector considered in the preceding section is established by considering it as the velocity of the particle of the fluid which at the instant t happens to be at the point x, y, z.

      Instead of the mass of a particle m we have here the concept of density ρ; this is a function of x, y, z, t, and may be described as a variable scalar field.

      The connection between mass and density may be described in this way: using the discrete picture, we may speak of the mass contained in a certain volume at a certain time, meaning by this the sum of the masses of particles which happen to be at that moment in that volume; if there are many particles of small masses this sum may be approximated by the integral of the density ρ(x, y, z, t) dx dy dz over the volume.

      The equations of motion of a fluid were given by Euler. We will write them as

      Here p which, like ρ, is a variable scalar field, that is a function of x, y, z, t, denotes pressure. It is sometimes connected with forces that act between the particles of the fluid. The quantities ξ, η, ζ bear about the same relation to the force components X, Y, Z as the density bears to mass. The vector ξ, η, ζ is called the force per unit volume. If in the discrete picture we consider the sum F of the forces (external forces, as distinct from the internal forces produced by other particles) acting at the moment t on all the particles within a certain volume, and consider a continuous approximation, then the integrals ∫ξ dx dy dz, ∫η dx dy dz, ∫ζ dx dy dz will approximate the components of F at the time t.

      The above equations correspond to equations 1.11 and could be derived from them, under certain assumptions, by considering the fluid as the limit of a set of particles; also the Newtonian equations may be considered as a limiting case of Euler’s equations by passing to the limit as indicated at the beginning of this section. However, we will not give these derivations here and will feel free to pass from one picture of matter to the other and replace the ordinary differential equations by the partial differential equations, and vice versa. In addition to equations 1.11 we had also equation 1.12, which states (for matter distributed discretely) that the mass of a particle does not change with time. For continuous distribution of matter the corresponding equation is

      This equation is called the continuity equation of matter.

      We will conclude this section by commenting on the mathematical structure of these equations. We have already introduced the notation x1, x2, x3 for the coordinates; it seems natural to write also u1, u2, u3 for the velocity components instead of u, v, w. With this notation the first three terms of the continuity equation can be written analogously to and we may include the fourth term by writing t = x4, setting u4 = 1, and allowing the index of summation i to range from 1 to 4. Then the continuity equation assumes the simple form

      The Euler equations when written in this new notation exhibit a striking symmetry; they assume the form

      Here, of course, ξi stands for ξ, η, ζ, depending on the value of the index i.

      The fact that we have numbered our independent variables permits us to introduce a further simplification into our notation. We may write the differential operators ∂/∂х, ∂/∂у, ∂/dz, ∂/dt as ∂i, for the four different values of the index i, so that the partial derivatives of any function ψ can be written as

      With these notational simplifications the Euler equations become

      and the continuity equation becomes

      The sums in the last two equations

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