The Brinkmann Chart
One way to quickly see the plausibility of the assertion that is a mere coordinate singularity is to recall that our spacetime is homogeneous, so that all events are equivalent. To confirm this directly, and to study from a different perspective the relative motion of our inertial nonspinning observers, we can apply the coordinate transformation
where
This brings the solution into its representation in terms of Brinkmann coordinates:
Since it can be shown that the new coordinates are geodesically complete, the Brinkmann coordinates define a global coordinate chart. In this chart, we can see that an infinite sequence of identical expansion-recollapse cycles occur!
Read more about this topic: Monochromatic Electromagnetic Plane Wave
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“Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)