Children of light and children of darkness is the vision of physics that emerges from this chapter, as from other branches of physics. The children of light are the differential equations that predict the future from the present. The children of darkness are the factors that fix these initial conditions.
— Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, Gravitation (1973), p. 555.
Man, what a classic text.
It’s my experience that the MTW text invokes very different feellings among its readers – strong dislike vs. loving affection. I’m one of the aficianodos. When I study that book, I feel like the authors are sitting right there with me – guiding me and sharing something wonderful.
What’s that famous quote about MTW, to the effect that it’s a good little book on GR buried within a big bad book on GR?
I love MTW. I’m enormously grateful for the sheer enthusiasm and generosity of the authors, in the way they cover the foundations from so many angles. I can understand why some people find their approach too verbose, but for me it was helpful to have the same crucial points made from several different angles, so when I didn’t quite get it the first time, the second and the third finally drove it home.
I do wish, though, that they’d resisted this sort of thing (p. 193):
and (p. 383):
and (p. 1045):
I’ve always assumed that most of the rhetorical flourishes in MTW were due to ‘W’ — John Wheeler. In particular, I’ve assumed that he wrote Chapter 44, with little input from Misner and Thorne.
(I’m with Greg Egan; I love the book.)
I cringed at this one, sorry.
Sounds enlightening!
Nice quote. Looking forward to the LHC shedding some more light.
Well, you could spend half of your life reading MTW, and the rest of it paying off the loan to buy it in the first place. (Unless you can rustle up a closed time-like curve and give it back when you’re finished…)
Alternatively you could read Foster and Nightingale (could be done over a weekend) and then get further details in books by Rindler, Wald, or, dare I say it, Weinberg (also expensive, so perhaps I destroy my own argument – but at least there is no “lovey-dovey” relativity in there).
@Greg Egan (#4) Of the three authors, wasn’t Wheeler the one inclined to wax lyrical? From those chapter headings, it sounds like he had been reading the Tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights.
edit: Oops, I see Chris W made much the same point in #5. But he didn’t mention the Arabian Nights 😉
Wheeler was the poet, Misner the techie and Thorne the cheerleader.
It’s true that the source of the ICs is more mysterious than that of the equations, but that doesn’t mean that they are better understood. They are definitely not easier to know. It seems that the light and darkness are all relative anyway.