This is a partial list of persons who have made ''major'' contributions to the (mainstream) development of

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics ...

, as acknowledged by standard texts on the subject. Some related lists are mentioned at the bottom of the page.

A

* Peter C. Aichelburg ( Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost, generalized symmetries), * Miguel Alcubierre (

numerical relativity Numerical relativity is one of the branches of general relativity that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems. To this end, supercomputers are often employed to study black holes, gravitational waves, neutron stars a ...

, Alcubierre drives), * Richard L. Arnowitt ( ADM formalism), * Abhay Ashtekar ( Ashtekar variables, dynamical horizons)

B

* Robert M L Baker, Jr. (high-frequency gravitational waves), * James M. Bardeen (Bardeen vacuum, black hole mechanics, gauge-invariant linear perturbations of Friedmann-Lemaître cosmologies), *

Barry Barish Barry Clark Barish (born January 27, 1936) is an American experimental physicist and Nobel Laureate. He is a Linde Professor of Physics, emeritus at California Institute of Technology and a leading expert on gravitational waves. In 2017, Bar ...

(

LIGO The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) is a large-scale physics experiment and observatory designed to detect cosmic gravitational waves and to develop gravitational-wave observations as an astronomical tool. Two large ...

builder, gravitational-waves observation), * Robert Bartnik (existence of ADM mass for asymptotically flat vacuums, quasilocal mass), * Jacob Bekenstein (

black hole entropy In physics, black hole thermodynamics is the area of study that seeks to reconcile the laws of thermodynamics with the existence of black hole event horizons. As the study of the statistical mechanics of black-body radiation led to the development ...

), * Vladimir A. Belinsky (

BKL conjecture A Belinski–Khalatnikov–Lifshitz (BKL) singularity is a model of the dynamic evolution of the universe near the initial gravitational singularity, described by an anisotropic, chaotic solution of the Einstein field equation of gravitati ...

, inverse scattering transform solution generating methods), * Peter G. Bergmann (constrained Hamiltonian dynamics), *

Bruno Bertotti Bruno Bertotti (24 December 1930 – 20 October 2018) was an Italian physicist, emeritus professor at the University of Pavia. He was one of the last students of physicist Erwin Schrödinger. Bertotti was well known for his contributions to gener ...

(Bertotti–Robinson electrovacuum), * Jiří Bičák ( exact solutions of

Einstein field equations In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form ...

), *

Heinz Billing Heinz Billing (7 April 1914 – 4 January 2017) was a German physicist and computer scientist, widely considered a pioneer in the construction of computer systems and computer data storage, who built a prototype laser interferometric gravitation ...

(prototype of laser interferometric gravitational-wave detector), * George David Birkhoff ( Birkhoff's theorem), *

Hermann Bondi Sir Hermann Bondi (1 November 1919 – 10 September 2005) was an Austrian- British mathematician and cosmologist. He is best known for developing the steady state model of the universe with Fred Hoyle and Thomas Gold as an alternative to the ...

(gravitational radiation, Bondi radiation chart, Bondi mass–energy–momentum, LTB dust, maverick models), * William B. Bonnor ( Bonnor beam solution), * Robert H. Boyer ( Boyer–Lindquist coordinates), * Vladimir Braginsky (gravitational-wave detector, quantum nondemolition (QND) measurement) * Carl H. Brans (Brans–Dicke theory), * Hubert Bray ( Riemannian Penrose inequality), * Hans Adolph Buchdahl (Buchdahl fluid, Buchdahl theorem), * Claudio Bunster (BTZ black hole, Surface terms in Hamiltonian formulation), * William L. Burke (Burke potential, textbook)

C

Bernard Carr Bernard J. Carr is a British professor of mathematics and astronomy at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL). His research interests include the early universe, dark matter, general relativity, primordial black holes, and the anthropic princip ...

(self-similarity hypothesis, primordial black holes), *

Brandon Carter Brandon Carter, (born 1942) is an Australian theoretical physicist, best known for his work on the properties of black holes and for being the first to name and employ the anthropic principle in its contemporary form. He is a researcher at th ...

(

no-hair theorem The no-hair theorem states that all stationary black hole solutions of the Einstein–Maxwell equations of gravitation and electromagnetism in general relativity can be completely characterized by only three independent ''externally'' observabl ...

Carter constant The Carter constant is a conserved quantity for motion around black holes in the general relativistic formulation of gravity. Its SI base units are kg2⋅m4⋅s−2. Carter's constant was derived for a spinning, charged black hole by Australi ...

, black-hole mechanics, variational principle for Ernst vacuums), * Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (

Chandrasekhar limit The Chandrasekhar limit () is the maximum mass of a stable white dwarf star. The currently accepted value of the Chandrasekhar limit is about (). White dwarfs resist gravitational collapse primarily through electron degeneracy pressure, compa ...

, colliding plane waves, quasinormal modes, relativistic stars, monograph''The Mathematical Theory of Black Holes''.), *

Jean Chazy Jean François Chazy (15 August 1882, Villefranche-sur-Saône – 9 March 1955, Paris) was a French mathematician and astronomer. Life Chazy was the son of a small provincial manufacturer and studied mathematics at the École Normale Supérie ...

(Chazy-Curzon vacuum), *

Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat (; born 29 December 1923) is a French mathematician and physicist. She has made seminal contributions to the study of Einstein's general theory of relativity, by showing that the Einstein equations can be put into the form o ...

(formerly Yvonne Bruhat; local existence and uniqueness of solutions to the vacuum Einstein equations, initial value formulations, textbook), *

Demetrios Christodoulou Demetrios Christodoulou ( el, Δημήτριος Χριστοδούλου; born 19 October 1951) is a Greek mathematician and physicist, who first became well known for his proof, together with Sergiu Klainerman, of the nonlinear stability of the ...

(naked singularity in LTB dust, stability of Minkowski vacuum), * Orest Chwolson (

gravitational lensing A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels toward the observer. This effect is known ...

), * Alejandro Corichi (fundamental contributions to quantum gravity and quantum loop gravity)

D

* Thibault Damour (gravitational radiation), *

Georges Darmois Georges Darmois (24 June 1888 – 3 January 1960) was a French mathematician and statistician. He pioneered in the theory of sufficiency, in stellar statistics, and in factor analysis. He was also one of the first French mathematicians to teach ...

(matching conditions, Darmois vacuum), * Stanley Deser (ADM initial value formulation, effective field theory), *

Bryce DeWitt Bryce Seligman DeWitt (January 8, 1923 – September 23, 2004), was an American theoretical physicist noted for his work in gravitation and quantum field theory. Life He was born Carl Bryce Seligman, but he and his three brothers, including th ...

(

Wheeler–DeWitt equation The Wheeler–DeWitt equation for theoretical physics and applied mathematics, is a field equation attributed to John Archibald Wheeler and Bryce DeWitt. The equation attempts to mathematically combine the ideas of quantum mechanics and general ...

), * Robert H. Dicke (Brans–Dicke theory, parametrized post-Newtonian (PPN) formalism, background radiation), * Paul A.M. Dirac (

graviton In theories of quantum gravity, the graviton is the hypothetical quantum of gravity, an elementary particle that mediates the force of gravitational interaction. There is no complete quantum field theory of gravitons due to an outstanding mathem ...

, monograph), * Tevian Dray (asymptotic structure, gravitational shock waves), * Ronald Drever (

, gravitational-wave detectors and observation)

E

Arthur Stanley Eddington Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumi ...

(early treatises,''Mathematical Theory of Relativity'' and ''Internal Constitution of the Stars''. relativistic stars, Eddington–Finkelstein coordinates, role of curvature, parametrized post-Newtonian formalism, popularization of general relativity), *

Jürgen Ehlers Jürgen Ehlers (; 29 December 1929 – 20 May 2008) was a German physicist who contributed to the understanding of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. From graduate and postgraduate work in Pascual Jordan's relativity research group ...

(Ehlers vacuum family, symmetries of pp waves, spacetime view of gravitational lensing, Newtonian limit), *

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

(creator of general relativity, principle of equivalence,

gravitational time dilation Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer ...

gravitational redshift In physics and general relativity, gravitational redshift (known as Einstein shift in older literature) is the phenomenon that electromagnetic waves or photons travelling out of a gravitational well (seem to) lose energy. This loss of energy ...

gravitational waves Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...

, perihelion of Mercury,

cosmological constant In cosmology, the cosmological constant (usually denoted by the Greek capital letter lambda: ), alternatively called Einstein's cosmological constant, is the constant coefficient of a term that Albert Einstein temporarily added to his field eq ...

, Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equations,

Einstein–Rosen bridge A wormhole (Einstein-Rosen bridge) is a hypothetical structure connecting disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special Solutions of the Einstein field equations, solution of the Einstein field equations. A wormhole can be visualize ...

), *

George F. R. Ellis George Francis Rayner Ellis, FRS, Hon. FRSSAf (born 11 August 1939), is the emeritus distinguished professor of complex systems in the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He co-auth ...

(relativistic cosmological models, classification of curvature singularities, averaging problem in cosmology, gauge-invariant linear perturbations of spatially homogeneous cosmologies, "small universes," monograph, Virbhadra–Ellis lens equation), * Frederick J. Ernst (Ernst vacuum family, Ernst equation, solution generating methods, Ernst–Wild electrovacuum), *

Loránd Eötvös Baron Loránd Eötvös de Vásárosnamény (or Loránd Eötvös, , '' hu, vásárosnaményi báró Eötvös Loránd Ágoston''; 27 July 1848 – 8 April 1919), also called Baron Roland von Eötvös in English literature, was a Hungarian physicist ...

(Weak Equivalence Principle experiment)

F

* Enrico Fermi ( Fermi coordinates,

Fermi–Walker transport Fermi–Walker transport is a process in general relativity used to define a coordinate system or reference frame such that all curvature in the frame is due to the presence of mass/energy density and not to arbitrary spin or rotation of the fram ...

), *

Richard Feynman Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist, known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfl ...

(

sticky bead argument In general relativity, the sticky bead argument is a simple thought experiment designed to show that gravitational radiation is indeed predicted by general relativity, and can have physical effects. These claims were not widely accepted prior to ...

s 'Mr. Smith' supermassive stars, derivation of the Einstein field equations from quantum field theory, Feynman Lectures on Gravitation), *

David Finkelstein David Ritz Finkelstein (July 19, 1929 – January 24, 2016) was an emeritus professor of physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Biography Born in New York City, Finkelstein obtained his Ph.D. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute ...

(Eddington–Finkelstein coordinates), *

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock Vladimir Aleksandrovich Fock (or Fok; russian: Влади́мир Алекса́ндрович Фок) (December 22, 1898 – December 27, 1974) was a Soviet physicist, who did foundational work on quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamic ...

(textbook, harmonic coordinates), *

Robert L. Forward Robert Lull Forward (August 15, 1932 – September 21, 2002) was an American physicist and science fiction writer. His literary work was noted for its scientific credibility and use of ideas developed from his career as an aerospace engineer. He ...

(gravitational-wave detectors), * William A. Fowler (relativistic stellar models, gravitational collapse), *

Alexander Friedmann Alexander Alexandrovich Friedmann (also spelled Friedman or Fridman ; russian: Алекса́ндр Алекса́ндрович Фри́дман) (June 16 .S. 4 1888 – September 16, 1925) was a Russian and Soviet physicist and mathematician ...

( Friedmann cosmological models)

G

* Robert P. Geroch ( Geroch group, singularity theorems, GHP formalism), * Kurt Gödel ( Gödel dust solution,

closed timelike curve In mathematical physics, a closed timelike curve (CTC) is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime, that is "closed", returning to its starting point. This possibility was first discovered by Willem Jacob van St ...

s), * Robert H. Gowdy ( Gowdy solutions), * Marcel Grossmann (taught Einstein the necessary mathematical tools for general relativity), * Allvar Gullstrand ( Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates)

H

* Yusuke Hagihara (

Schwarzschild geodesics In general relativity, Schwarzschild geodesics describe the motion of test particles in the gravitational field of a central fixed mass M, that is, motion in the Schwarzschild metric. Schwarzschild geodesics have been pivotal in the validation of ...

),
Mustafa Halilsoy
Nutku-Halil solution for colliding waves
On the Nutku—Halil solution for colliding impulsive gravitational waves
*

James Hartle James Burkett Hartle (August 20, 1939) is an American physicist. He has been a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 1966, and he is currently a member of the external faculty of the Santa Fe Institute. Hartle ...

(

quantum cosmology Quantum cosmology is the attempt in theoretical physics to develop a quantum theory of the universe. This approach attempts to answer open questions of classical physical cosmology, particularly those related to the first phases of the universe. ...

, textbook), * Stephen W. Hawking ( Hawking-Penrose singularity theorems,

Hawking radiation Hawking radiation is theoretical black body radiation that is theorized to be released outside a black hole's event horizon because of relativistic quantum effects. It is named after the physicist Stephen Hawking, who developed a theoretical a ...

, black-hole thermodynamics, monograph, Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term), * Charles W. Hellaby ( cosmological models), * David Hilbert ( Hilbert's action principle), * Banesh Hoffmann ( EIH approximation), *

Fred Hoyle Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other sci ...

(steady-state cosmology), *

Russell Hulse Russell Alan Hulse (born November 28, 1950) is an American physicist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, shared with his thesis advisor Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr., "''for the discovery of a new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up n ...

( Hulse–Taylor pulsar)

I

* Leopold Infeld ( Einstein–Infeld–Hoffmann equations), * Richard Isaacson (energy–momentum complex), * James A. Isenberg (initial value formulations, gluing construction), *

Werner Israel Werner Israel, (October 4, 1931 – May 18, 2022) was a physicist, author, researcher, and professor at the University of Victoria. Biography Born in Berlin, Germany and raised in Cape Town, South Africa, he first received his B.Sc. in 1951 an ...

(no-hair theorem, tidal forces around black hole singularities, black hole interiors and mass inflation)

J

* Theodore Jacobson (thermodynamic derivation of Einstein's field equation), * Jørg Tofte Jebsen ( Birkhoff's theorem), * George Barker Jeffery (Baldwin–Jeffery plane wave), *

Pascual Jordan Ernst Pascual Jordan (; 18 October 1902 – 31 July 1980) was a German theoretical and mathematical physicist who made significant contributions to quantum mechanics and quantum field theory. He contributed much to the mathematical form of matri ...

( Jordan–Brans–Dicke theory)

K

* Niky Kamran (Wave equations in black hole space-times), * Ronald Kantowski (Kantowski-Sachs fluids), * Anders Karlhede ( Cartan–Karlhede classification), *

Edward Kasner Edward Kasner (April 2, 1878 – January 7, 1955) was an American mathematician who was appointed Tutor on Mathematics in the Columbia University Mathematics Department. Kasner was the first Jewish person appointed to a faculty position in t ...

(Kasner dust solution), * Roy Patrick Kerr ( Kerr vacuum, Kerr–Schild metrics, use of

Lie groups In mathematics, a Lie group (pronounced ) is a group that is also a differentiable manifold. A manifold is a space that locally resembles Euclidean space, whereas groups define the abstract concept of a binary operation along with the additi ...

in relativity, Kerr–Farnsworth ansatz), *

Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov Isaak Markovych Khalatnykov ( uk, Ісаа́к Ма́ркович Хала́тников; 17 October 1919 – 9 January 2021) was a leading Soviet theoretical physicist who has made significant contributions to many areas of theoretical physics, ...

(BKL conjecture), * William Morris Kinnersley (photon rocket), *

Sergiu Klainerman Sergiu Klainerman (born May 13, 1950) is a mathematician known for his contributions to the study of hyperbolic differential equations and general relativity. He is currently the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics at Princeton University, w ...

(global stability of Minkowski vacuum), * Oskar Klein (Klein fluid, Kaluza–Klein theories), * Arthur Komar (Komar energy–momentum integrals), * Erich Kretschmann ( Kretschmann invariant), *

Martin Kruskal Martin David Kruskal (; September 28, 1925 – December 26, 2006) was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and ...

(

Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates In general relativity, Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates, named after Martin Kruskal and George Szekeres, are a coordinate system for the Schwarzschild geometry for a black hole. These coordinates have the advantage that they cover the entire space ...

for Schwarzschild vacuum), * Wolfgang Kundt (EK classification of symmetries of pp waves)

L

* Cornelius Lanczos ( Lanczos tensor, Lanczos–van Stockum dust), * Lev D. Landau (Landau–Lifshitz formulation, textbookSee ''Course on Theoretical Physics'', Volume 2.), * Georges-Henri Lemaître (cosmological model, LTB dust, Lemaître chart on Schwarzschild vacuum), *

Josef Lense Josef Lense (28 October 1890 in Vienna – 28 December 1985 in Munich) was an Austrian physicist. In 1914 Lense obtained his doctorate under Samuel Oppenheim. From 1927-28 he was Professor ordinarius and from 1928–1946 Professor extraord ...

(Lense–Thirring precession), *

Tullio Levi-Civita Tullio Levi-Civita, (, ; 29 March 1873 – 29 December 1941) was an Italian mathematician, most famous for his work on absolute differential calculus (tensor calculus) and its applications to the theory of relativity, but who also made signific ...

(static vacuums, C-metric; see also related list below), *

André Lichnerowicz André Lichnerowicz (January 21, 1915, Bourbon-l'Archambault – December 11, 1998, Paris) was a noted French differential geometer and mathematical physicist of Polish descent. He is considered the founder of modern Poisson geometry. Biograp ...

(3+1 formalism, matching conditions, Lichnerowicz equation), * Evgeny M. Lifshitz (Landau–Lifschitz gravitational energy–momentum complex, BKL conjecture, textbook), * Alan P. Lightman (problem book), * Hendrik Lorentz (

Hamilton's principle In physics, Hamilton's principle is William Rowan Hamilton's formulation of the principle of stationary action. It states that the dynamics of a physical system are determined by a variational problem for a functional based on a single function, ...

coordinate-free A coordinate-free, or component-free, treatment of a scientific theory or mathematical topic develops its concepts on any form of manifold without reference to any particular coordinate system. Benefits Coordinate-free treatments generally allo ...

formulation), *

David Lovelock David Lovelock (born 1938) is a British theoretical physicist and mathematician. He is known for Lovelock theory of gravity and the Lovelock's theorem Lovelock's theorem of general relativity says that from a local gravitational action whic ...

( Lovelock theory,

Lovelock's theorem Lovelock's theorem of general relativity says that from a local gravitational action which contains only second derivatives of the four-dimensional spacetime metric, then the only possible equations of motion are the Einstein field equations. T ...

)

M

* R. G. McLenaghan ( CM invariants), * Reinhard Meinel (Neugebauer–Meinel dust disk solution), * Hermann Minkowski (

Minkowski spacetime In mathematical physics, Minkowski space (or Minkowski spacetime) () is a combination of Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional Euclidean space and time into a four-dimensional manifold where the spacetime interval between any two Event (rel ...

), * Charles W. Misner (mixmaster model, ADM initial value formulation, ADM mass,

textbook A textbook is a book containing a comprehensive compilation of content in a branch of study with the intention of explaining it. Textbooks are produced to meet the needs of educators, usually at educational institutions. Schoolbooks are textbook ...

) * John Moffat (various classical gravitation theories) * Vincent Moncrief (global properties of spatially compact dynamical vacuum spacetimes), * C. Møller (energy–momentum complex), * Moustafa Mosharafa (relation of radiation, mass and energy)

N

* Gernot Neugebauer (Neugebauer–Meinel dust disk solution), * Ezra Ted Newman (Newman–Penrose formalism, Kerr–Newman black hole solution, Janis–Newman–Winicour solution, NUT vacuum, RT spacetimes, relation of lensing to Weyl tensor), *

Gunnar Nordström Gunnar Nordström (12 March 1881 – 24 December 1923) was a Finnish theoretical physicist best remembered for his theory of gravitation, which was an early competitor of general relativity. Nordström is often designated by modern writers as ' ...

(

Reissner–Nordström metric In physics and astronomy, the Reissner–Nordström metric is a static solution to the Einstein–Maxwell field equations, which corresponds to the gravitational field of a charged, non-rotating, spherically symmetric body of mass ''M''. T ...

), * Kenneth Nordtvedt (

Nordtvedt effect In theoretical astrophysics, the Nordtvedt effect refers to the relative motion between the Earth and the Moon that would be observed if the gravitational self-energy of a body contributed differently to its gravitational mass than to its inerti ...

, PPN formalism), * Igor D. Novikov (Novikov chart in Schwarzschild vacuum, no-hair theorem, accretion disks around black holes, monograph)
Yavuz Nutku
Nutku-Halil solution for colliding waves
On the Nutku—Halil solution for colliding impulsive gravitational waves

O

Robert Oppenheimer J. Robert Oppenheimer (; April 22, 1904 – February 18, 1967) was an American theoretical physicist. A professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, Oppenheimer was the wartime head of the Los Alamos Laboratory and is often ...

(gravitational collapse, Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equation, Oppenheimer–Snyder black hole), * Amos Ori (black hole interiors, time machines, radiation reaction, gravitational collapse)

P

* Achilles Papapetrou (chart for Ernst vacuum family, Majumdar–Papapetrou electrovacuums, Dixon–Papapetrou equations), * Paul Painlevé ( Gullstrand–Painlevé coordinates), * Roger Penrose (Hawking–Penrose singularity theorems, Penrose diagrams, techniques from algebraic geometry and differential topology, Penrose limits, cosmic censorship hypotheses, Penrose inequalities, geometry of gravitational plane waves, impulsive waves, Penrose–Khan colliding plane wave, Newman–Penrose formalism, Weyl curvature hypothesis, highly influential monograph''Techniques of Differential Topology in Relativity''.), * Alexei Zinovievich Petrov ( Petrov classification of algebraic properties of Weyl curvature tensor), * Tsvi Piran (gravitational collapse), * Felix A. E. Pirani (gravitational radiation, Petrov–Pirani classification of algebraic properties of Weyl curvature tensor), * Jerzy F. Plebański (Plebanski vacuum, Plebanski action), *

Eric Poisson Eric Poisson (born July 26, 1965) is a Canadian award-winning physicist specializing in the study of black holes. Poisson is a professor at the University of Guelph as well as an affiliate member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physic ...

(black hole interiors, mass inflation, post-Newtonian approximation, monographs''A Relativist's Toolkit: The Mathematics of Black-hole Mechanics'' and ''Gravity: Newtonian, Post-Newtonian, Relativistic'' (with Clifford M. Will).), * William H. Press (gravitational-wave astronomy, problem book), * Frans Pretorius (

simulation), * Richard H. Price (Price's theorem, books)

R

George Yuri Rainich George Yuri Rainich (Rabinovich) (March 25, 1886 in Odessa – October 10, 1968) was a leading mathematical physicist in the early twentieth century. Career Rainich studied mathematics from 1904 to 1908 in Odessa, in Göttingen (1905–1906), a ...

(Rainich conditions), * A. K. Raychaudhuri (

Raychaudhuri equation In general relativity, the Raychaudhuri equation, or Landau–Raychaudhuri equation, is a fundamental result describing the motion of nearby bits of matter. The equation is important as a fundamental lemma for the Penrose–Hawking singularity the ...

), *

Tullio Regge Tullio Eugenio Regge (; July 11, 1931 – October 23, 2014) was an Italian theoretical physicist. Biography Regge obtained the ''laurea'' in physics from the University of Turin in 1952 under the direction of Mario Verde and Gleb Wataghin, and ...

(Regge calculus), * Hans Reissner (

), *

Wolfgang Rindler Wolfgang Rindler (18 May 1924 – 8 February 2019) was a physicist working in the field of general relativity where he is known for introducing the term "event horizon", Rindler coordinates, and (in collaboration with Roger Penrose) for the use of ...

(Rindler chart for Minkowski vacuum), * Hans Ringström (strong cosmic censorship holds for T3-Gowdy vacuums), *

Howard Percy Robertson Howard Percy "Bob" Robertson (January 27, 1903 – August 26, 1961) was an American mathematician and physicist known for contributions related to physical cosmology and the uncertainty principle. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at the C ...

(role of curvature, parametrized post-Newtonian formalism, Robertson–Walker metric), * Ivor Robinson (Bel–Robinson tensor, Bertotti–Robinson electrovacuum), * Nathan Rosen (Erez–Rosen solution,

, Einstein–Rosen gravitational waves), * Remo Ruffini (particle motion in black holes, textbook)

S

* Rainer K. Sachs (

peeling theorem In general relativity, the peeling theorem describes the asymptotic behavior of the Weyl tensor as one goes tnull infinity Let \gamma be a null geodesic in a spacetime (M, g_) from a point p to null infinity, with affine parameter \lambda. Then the ...

, optical scalars, Kantowski–Sachs fluid solutions, Sachs–Wolfe effect, Bondi–Metzner–Sachs group), *

Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet Nuclear physics, nuclear physicist, Soviet dissident, dissident, ...

(vacuum fluctuations), *

Alfred Schild Alfred Schild (September 7, 1921 – May 24, 1977) was a leading Austrian American physicist, well known for his contributions to the Golden age of general relativity (1960–1975). Biography Schild was born in Istanbul on September 7, 1921. His ...

( Kerr–Schild metrics,

Schild's ladder In the theory of general relativity, and differential geometry more generally, Schild's ladder is a first-order method for ''approximating'' parallel transport of a vector along a curve using only affinely parametrized geodesics. The method ...

), * Leonard Isaac Schiff (PPN formalism, textbook), *

Richard Schoen Richard Melvin Schoen (born October 23, 1950) is an American mathematician known for his work in differential geometry and geometric analysis. He is best known for the resolution of the Yamabe problem in 1984. Career Born in Celina, Ohio, and a ...

(positive energy theorem, gravitational shielding), *

Engelbert Schücking Engelbert Levin Schücking (May 23, 1926 – January 5, 2015), in English-language works often cited as E. L. Schucking, was a physics professor at New York University in New York City. His research interests were theoretical astrophysics, general ...

(Ozsváth–Schücking plane wave), * Bernard F. Schutz (gravitational-wave detectors, textbook), *

Karl Schwarzschild Karl Schwarzschild (; 9 October 1873 – 11 May 1916) was a German physicist and astronomer. Schwarzschild provided the first exact solution to the Einstein field equations of general relativity, for the limited case of a single spherical non-r ...

(

Schwarzschild solution In Einstein's theory of general relativity, the Schwarzschild metric (also known as the Schwarzschild solution) is an exact solution to the Einstein field equations that describes the gravitational field outside a spherical mass, on the assump ...

Schwarzschild radius The Schwarzschild radius or the gravitational radius is a physical parameter in the Schwarzschild solution to Einstein's field equations that corresponds to the radius defining the event horizon of a Schwarzschild black hole. It is a characteris ...

, Event horizon, Schwarzschild vacuum, Schwarzschild fluid), *

Dennis William Sciama Dennis William Siahou Sciama, (; 18 November 1926 – 18/19 December 1999) was a British physicist who, through his own work and that of his students, played a major role in developing British physics after the Second World War. He was the PhD ...

(Einstein–Cartan theory, role in legitimizing black hole concept), * Roman Ulrich Sexl (Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost), *

Irwin I. Shapiro Irwin Ira Shapiro is an American astrophysicist and Timken University Professor at Harvard University. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982. He was the director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian from 1982 to 20 ...

( Shapiro effect, observational tests), *

Harlow Shapley Harlow Shapley (November 2, 1885 – October 20, 1972) was an American scientist, head of the Harvard College Observatory (1921–1952), and political activist during the latter New Deal and Fair Deal. Shapley used Cepheid variable stars to estim ...

(rotating cosmologies), * Willem de Sitter (

de Sitter space In mathematical physics, ''n''-dimensional de Sitter space (often abbreviated to dS''n'') is a maximally symmetric Lorentzian manifold with constant positive scalar curvature. It is the Lorentzian analogue of an ''n''-sphere (with its canoni ...

, de Sitter precession), *

Hartland Snyder Hartland Sweet Snyder (1913, Salt Lake City – 1962) was an American physicist who along with Robert Oppenheimer calculated the gravitational collapse of a pressure-free sphere of dust particles as described by Einstein's general relativity, and f ...

(Oppenheimer–Snyder collapsing dust model), * Hans Stephani (Stephani dust solution, monograph, textbook), * Willem Jacob van Stockum ( Lanczos–van Stockum dust), * John Lighton Synge (global structure of Schwarzschild vacuum, world function, O'Brien–Synge matching conditions), *

George Szekeres George Szekeres AM FAA (; 29 May 1911 – 28 August 2005) was a Hungarian–Australian mathematician. Early years Szekeres was born in Budapest, Hungary, as Szekeres György and received his degree in chemistry at the Technical University o ...

(

for Schwarzschild vacuum)

T

Abraham Haskel Taub Abraham Haskel Taub (; February 1, 1911 – August 9, 1999) was a distinguished American mathematician and physicist, well known for his important contributions to the early development of general relativity, as well as differential geometry an ...

(Taub plane symmetric vacuum, Taub–NUT vacuum, vacuum solutions foliated by Bianchi manifolds, relativistic hydrodynamics), * Joseph Taylor ( Hulse–Taylor pulsar), *

Saul Teukolsky Saul Arno Teukolsky (born August 2, 1947) is a theoretical astrophysicist and a professor of Physics and Astronomy at Caltech and Cornell University. His major research interests include general relativity, relativistic astrophysics, and computa ...

(Teukolsky's equations, numerical relativity, problem book), *

Hans Thirring Hans Thirring (March 23, 1888 – March 22, 1976) was an Austrian theoretical physicist, professor, and father of the physicist Walter Thirring. He won the Haitinger Prize of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in 1920. Together with the mathemat ...

(Lense–Thirring precession effect), * Kip S. Thorne (relativistic multipoles, relativistic stars, hoop conjecture,

membrane paradigm In black hole theory, the black hole membrane paradigm is a simplified model, useful for visualising and calculating the effects predicted by quantum mechanics for the exterior physics of black holes, without using quantum-mechanical principles or ...

, gravitational-wave detectors,

, wormholes), * Frank J. Tipler (classification of curvature singularities, Tipler cylinder), * Richard Chase Tolman ( Tolman surface brightness test, Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff (TOV) equation, Tolman dust solutions, LTB dust), * Andrzej Trautman (RT spacetimes)

U

* William G. Unruh ( Unruh radiation)

V

* P. C. Vaidya ( Vaidya metric, Vaidya–Patel metric), * K. S. Virbhadra (Virbhadra–Ellis lens equation Virbhadra–Ellis lens equation, relativistic image

photon surface

observational test for the weak cosmic censorship hypothesi

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PRVDAQ000077000012124014000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes]), * George Volkoff (Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit, Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff equation)

W

* Robert M. Wald (

, black-hole perturbations, black-hole thermodynamics, electric fields outside a black hole, quantum field theory in curved spacetimes), *

Arthur Geoffrey Walker Prof Arthur Geoffrey Walker FRS FRSE (17 July 1909 in Watford, Hertfordshire, England – 31 March 2001) was a British mathematician who made important contributions to physics and physical cosmology. Although he was an accomplished geomete ...

(Fermi–Walker derivatives, Robertson–Walker metric), *

Mu-Tao Wang Mu-Tao Wang () is a Taiwanese mathematician and current Professor of Mathematics at Columbia University. Education He entered National Taiwan University in 1984, originally for international business, but after a year he switched to mathematics. ...

(quasilocal mass-energy), *

Joseph Weber Joseph Weber (May 17, 1919 – September 30, 2000) was an American physicist. He gave the earliest public lecture on the principles behind the laser and the maser and developed the first gravitational wave detectors (Weber bars). Early educati ...

(gravitational-wave detectors), *

Rainer Weiss Rainer "Rai" Weiss ( , ; born September 29, 1932) is an American physicist, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. He is a professor of physics emeritus at MIT and an adjunct professor at LSU. He is best known ...

(

, gravitational-waves observation), * Peter Westervelt (indirect evidence for gravitational waves), * Hermann Weyl (Weyl vacuums; see also related list below), *

John Archibald Wheeler John Archibald Wheeler (July 9, 1911April 13, 2008) was an American theoretical physicist. He was largely responsible for reviving interest in general relativity in the United States after World War II. Wheeler also worked with Niels Bohr in ...

(coined the terms "black holes" and "wormholes," geometrodynamics, relativistic stars, Zerilli–Wheeler equation,

), * Paul S. Wesson (relativistic cosmology, Kaluza–Klein theory) * Clifford Martin Will (parametrized post-Newtonian formalism, relativistic astrophysics, textbook''Gravity: Newtonian, Post-Newtonian, Relativistic'' (with Eric Poisson).), *

Edward Witten Edward Witten (born August 26, 1951) is an American mathematical and theoretical physicist. He is a Professor Emeritus in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Witten is a researcher in string theory, q ...

( positive energy theorem), *

Louis Witten Louis may refer to: * Louis (coin) * Louis (given name), origin and several individuals with this name * Louis (surname) * Louis (singer), Serbian singer * HMS ''Louis'', two ships of the Royal Navy See also Derived or associated terms * Lewis ( ...

(Witten electrovacuum solutions)

X

* Basilis C. Xanthopoulos (Chandrasekhar–Xanthopoulos colliding plane wave)

Y

Shing-Tung Yau Shing-Tung Yau (; ; born April 4, 1949) is a Chinese-American mathematician and the William Caspar Graustein Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University. In April 2022, Yau announced retirement from Harvard to become Chair Professor of mathem ...

(positive energy theorem), * James W. York (initial value formulation,

Gibbons–Hawking–York boundary term In general relativity, the Gibbons–Hawking–York boundary term is a term that needs to be added to the Einstein–Hilbert action when the underlying spacetime manifold has a boundary. The Einstein–Hilbert action is the basis for the most eleme ...

)

Z

* Vladimir E. Zakharov (inverse scattering transform solution generating method), *

Yakov Borisovich Zel'dovich Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich ( be, Я́каў Бары́савіч Зяльдо́віч, russian: Я́ков Бори́сович Зельдо́вич; 8 March 1914 – 2 December 1987), also known as YaB, was a leading Soviet physicist of Bel ...

(early evidence for

, early evidence of black-hole radiation, relativistic astrophysics)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

Notes

See also