Bonn 2025 – scientific programme
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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik
AGPhil 9: History and Philosophy of General Relativity
AGPhil 9.1: Invited Talk
Thursday, March 13, 2025, 14:00–14:45, HS XVII
Waves in a turbulent sea: controversies over gravitational waves — •Henrique Gomes — University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
Einstein first claimed gravitational waves would be produced in certain situations within general relativity in 1916. And yet, different parts of that claim were controversial, right up to the discovery of the Hulse-Taylor binary pulsar. In this talk I want to distinguish and give more details about three separate controversies: (1) Are there solutions of the Einstein equations that admit gravitational waves? (2) Can they be produced in systems that are freely-falling? (3) Do gravitational waves carry energy?
Each of these controversies has an interesting history and, even if there are a few holdouts, an interesting resolution.
Keywords: Gravitational waves; Gravitational energy; asymptotic structure