For seventy years, we have known that Einstein's theory is essentially a theory of propagation of waves for the gravitational field. Confusion enters, however, through the fact that the word wave, in physics, implies sometimes repetition and sometimes not. This confusion is often increased by he use of Fourier transforms, by which a disturbanse which appears to be without repetition is resolved into periodic wave-trains with all frequencies. But, in a general curved space-time, we have nothing corresponding to Fourier transforms. Here, we consider systematically waves corresponding to the...

This volume presents a unified theory of shock waves corresponding to gravitational and electromagnetic fields and to magnetohydrodynamics in the context of general relativity. The common tool employed is provided by tensor distribution -- an approach which has been systematically developed by the author since 1962. One remarkable result is that this yields a complete theory of magnetohydrodynamic shock waves, which can also be applied to the treatment of pulsars. The same method is also applicable to the quantization of some physical fields in curved space-time. This, too, is discussed in...

Illustrates developments in the many areas of contemporary physics which have benefitted from the work and influence of Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat. The work considers the role of geometry of manifolds in space-time physics and that of functional analysis in quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.

This volume contains the proceedings of the Colloquium "Analysis, Manifolds and Physics" organized in honour of Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat by her friends, collaborators and former students, on June 3, 4 and 5, 1992 in Paris. Its title accurately reflects the domains to which Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat has made essential contributions. Since the rise of General Relativity, the geometry of Manifolds has become a non-trivial part of space-time physics. At the same time, Functional Analysis has been of enormous importance in Quantum Mechanics, and Quantum Field Theory. Its role becomes decisive when one...