Robert Wald
Robert M. Wald | |
---|---|
![]() Wald in 2012 | |
Born | June 29, 1947 (age 77) |
Citizenship | United States |
Alma mater | Columbia University (A.B. 1968) Princeton University (PhD 1972) |
Known for | General Relativity (1984) Wald's formula for black-hole entropy |
Awards | Einstein Prize (APS) (2017) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Gravitational physics |
Institutions | University of Maryland, College Park University of Chicago |
Thesis | Nonspherical gravitational collapse and black hole uniqueness (1972) |
Doctoral advisor | John Archibald Wheeler |
Robert M. Wald (/wɔːld/; born June 29, 1947 in New York City) is an American theoretical physicist who studies gravitation. His research interests include general relativity, black holes, and quantum gravity. He is also a science communicator and textbook author.
Life and education
He is the son of the mathematician and statistician Abraham Wald. Wald's parents died in a plane crash when he was three years old.[1] He earned his Bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 1968 and his PhD in physics from Princeton University in 1972,[2] under the supervision of John Archibald Wheeler. His doctoral dissertation was titled Nonspherical Gravitational Collapse and Black Hole Uniqueness.[3]
Career and contributions
Between 1972 and 1974, Robert Wald worked as a research associate in physics at the University of Maryland.[3] He then moved to the University of Chicago, spending two years as a postdoctoral fellow before joining the faculty in 1976.[4] He wanted to move to Chicago in order to work with Robert Geroch and other specialists in gravitation.[5]
In 1977, Wald published a popular-science book titled Space, Time, and Gravity: The Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes explaining Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, and its implications in cosmology and astrophysics. The book also gives a survey of what was then ongoing research on gravitational collapse and black holes. This book grew out of a series of lectures Wald gave as part of the Compton Lectures at the University of Chicago in the spring of 1976.[6] The Compton Lectures, given every Spring and Fall quarter, are intended to explain notable advances in the physical sciences to members of the general public.[7]
He published the textbook General Relativity in 1984. Aimed at beginning graduate students, it covers spinors, the variational-principle formulation, the initial-value formulation, (exact) gravitational waves, singularities, Penrose diagrams, Hawking radiation, and black-hole thermodynamics.[8]
Wald has taught first-year graduate courses covering a broad range of topics, including classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, statistical mechanics, and electromagnetism. He has also taught courses on general relativity, his specialty, at both introductory and advanced levels. A particularly effective teacher, he received the Graduate Teaching Award from the University of Chicago in 1997.[9]
Wald investigates black holes and their thermodynamics, and gravitational radiation-reaction (or self-force).[4] Due to quantum-mechanical processes, black holes emit particles and therefore have a definite temperature and entropy.[10] Wald has published over 100 research papers on general relativity and quantum field theory in curved spacetime, many of which have been cited by hundreds of subsequent papers.[11] In 1993, he described the Wald entropy of a black hole, which is dependent simply on the area of the event horizon of the black hole.[12]
He organized The Symposium on Black Holes and Relativistic Stars in 1996, in honor of the late Nobel Prize-winning theoretical astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. Distinguished speakers of this event included Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and Martin Rees. Although the event charged an entrance fee of $100, Wald made sure all University of Chicago students were admitted free of charge.[9] Chandrasekhar founded a research group on general relativity at the University of Chicago, which includes Wald, James Hartle and Robert Geroch.[13] Although Wald and Chandrasekhar never collaborated on any particular research projects, the two developed warm relations.[5]
He became a fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) in 1996 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences in 2001.[3] He received the Einstein Prize from the APS Division of Gravitational Physics in 2017 for "the discovery of the general formula for black hole entropy, and for developing a rigorous formulation of quantum field theory in curved spacetime."[4]
Wald delivered a public lecture at the University of Alabama in October 27, 2015, titled "The Formulation of General Relativity," celebrating the centennial of Einstein's theory.[14] Wald is a member of the LIGO group at the University of Chicago, headed by astrophysicist Daniel Holz. The Laser Interferometry Gravitational-wave Observatory detected gravitational waves for the first time in 2015, one century after Einstein predicted their existence.[15]
Books
- Wald, Robert M. (1992) [1977]. Space, Time, and Gravity: The Theory of the Big Bang and Black Holes (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87029-4.
- Wald, Robert M. (1984). General Relativity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87033-2.
- Wald, Robert M. (1994). Quantum Field Theory in Curved Spacetime and Black Hole Thermodynamics. Chicago Lectures in Physics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87027-8.
- Wald, Robert M., ed. (1998). Black Holes and Relativistic Stars. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-87035-9.
- Wald, Robert M., ed. (2022). Advanced Classical Electromagnetism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691220390.
See also
- List of contributors to general relativity
- List of books on general relativity
- Bekenstein–Hawking entropy
References
- ^ Morgenstern, Oskar (1951). "Abraham Wald, 1902–1950". Econometrica. 19 (4). Econometrica, Vol. 19, No. 4: 361–367. doi:10.2307/1907462. JSTOR 1907462.
- ^ "Alumni Sons and Daughters | Columbia College Today". Columbia College Today. Retrieved January 18, 2022.
- ^ a b c "Robert M. Wald". American Institute of Physics. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
- ^ a b c "2017 Einstein Prize Recipient". Division of Gravitational Physics, American Physical Society (APS). Retrieved July 18, 2019.
- ^ a b Wali, Kameshwar C., ed. (1997). "13. Some Memories of Chandra - Robert M. Wald". S. Chandrasekhar - The Man Behind the Legend. Singapore: Imperial College Press. pp. 80–85. ISBN 1-86094-038-2.
- ^ Moché, Dinah L. (May 1978). "Review of Space, Time, and Gravity by Robert M. Wald". Physics Teacher. 16 (5): 332. doi:10.1119/1.2339970.
- ^ "Arthur H. Compton Lectures". Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
- ^ A Guide to Relativity Books. John C. Baez et al. University of California, Riverside. September 1998. Accessed January 18, 2019.
- ^ a b Steele, Diana (June 12, 1997). "Graduate Teaching Award: Robert Wald". University of Chicago Chronicle. 16 (9). Retrieved 20 May 2013.
- ^ "Robert M. Wald". Member Directory. National Academy of Sciences. 2001. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
- ^ "Robert M. Wald". INSPIRE - HEP. Retrieved August 16, 2019.
- ^ Wald, Robert M. (1993). "Black Hole Entropy is Noether Charge". Physical Review D. 48 (8): R3427–R3431. arXiv:gr-qc/9307038. Bibcode:1993PhRvD..48.3427W. doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.48.R3427. PMID 10016675. S2CID 18398147.
- ^ Witten, Thomas (April 2018). "Our History. Chapter One: 1893 to 1986". Department of Physics, University of Chicago. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
- ^ "GR 100: Celebrating the Centennial of Einstein's Theory of General Relativity". Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
- ^ "LIGO detects colliding black holes for third time". UChicago News. July 1, 2017. Retrieved July 19, 2019.
External links
- Robert M. Wald faculty page at the University of Chicago
- Robert Wald research articles cited by SLAC-SPIRES
- Robert Wald research articles cited by arXiv
- Some properties of Noether charge and a proposal for dynamical black hole entropy, Vivek Iyer and Robert M. Wald, Phys. Rev., D 50 (1994) 846-864 (sample research paper; cited over 250 times)
- Robert Wald at the Mathematics Genealogy Project
- Recorded Lectures Given by Robert Wald. Perimeter Institute.
- Silver Screen - PSD faculty members discuss Hollywood's portrayal of science and scientists. The University of Chicago Magazine. Summer 2015.
- The Formulation of General Relativity. Robert Wald. Physics Public Talk. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Alabama. October 27, 2015.
- 1947 births
- Living people
- American relativity theorists
- University of Chicago faculty
- Fellows of the American Physical Society
- Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
- 21st-century American physicists
- American people of Romanian-Jewish descent
- Jewish American scientists
- Jewish physicists
- 21st-century American Jews
- Columbia College (New York) alumni
- Princeton University alumni