Frame Fields In General Relativity
In general relativity, a frame field (also called a tetrad or vierbein) is a set of four orthonormal vector fields, one timelike and three spacelike, defined on a Lorentzian manifold that is physically interpreted as a model of spacetime. The timelike unit vector field is often denoted by and the three spacelike unit vector fields by . All tensorial quantities defined on the manifold can be expressed using the frame field and its dual coframe field.
Frames were introduced into general relativity by Hermann Weyl in 1929.
The general theory of tetrads (and analogs in dimensions other than 4) is described in the article on Cartan formalism; the index notation for tetrads is explained in tetrad (index notation).
Read more about Frame Fields In General Relativity: Physical Interpretation, Specifying A Frame, Specifying The Metric Using A Coframe, Relationship With Metric Tensor, in A Coordinate Basis, Comparison With Coordinate Basis, Nonspinning and Inertial Frames, Example: Static Observers in Schwarzschild Vacuum, Example: Lemaître Observers in The Schwarzschild Vacuum, Example: Hagihara Observers in The Schwarzschild Vacuum, Generalizations
Famous quotes containing the words frame, fields, general and/or relativity:
“I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.”
—Isaac Newton (1642–1727)
“The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairyland. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry ... like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit-trees are in blossom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pleasure is necessarily reciprocal; no one feels it who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“By an application of the theory of relativity to the taste of readers, to-day in Germany I am called a German man of science, and in England I am represented as a Swiss Jew. If I come to be regarded as a bête noire the descriptions will be reversed, and I shall become a Swiss Jew for the Germans and a German man of science for the English!”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)