In general relativity, the van Stockum dust is an exact solution of the Einstein field equation in which the gravitational field is generated by dust rotating about an axis of cylindrical symmetry. Since the density of the dust is increasing with distance from this axis, the solution is rather artificial, but as one of the simplest known solutions in general relativity, it stands as a pedagogically important example.
This solution is named for Willem Jacob van Stockum, who rediscovered it in 1937, independently of an even earlier discovery by Cornelius Lanczos in 1924.
Read more about Van Stockum Dust: Derivation, Properties, An Apparent Paradox, A Genuine Paradox
Famous quotes containing the words van and/or dust:
“The variables of quantification, ‘something,’ ‘nothing,’ ‘everything,’ range over our whole ontology, whatever it may be; and we are convicted of a particular ontological presupposition if, and only if, the alleged presuppositum has to be reckoned among the entities over which our variables range in order to render one of our affirmations true.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,”
—Theodore Roethke (1908–1963)