And the Nobel prize in physics 2017 went for work in General Relativity ! Actually, experimental work involving sophisticated detectors and Numerical Relativity, one of the branches of GR. The prize was awarded to Rainer Weiss (85 years old, 1/2 of the prize), Barry Barish (81 years old, 1/4 of the prize) and Kip Thorne (77 years old, 1/4 of the prize) who have "shaken the world again" with their work on Ligo experiment, which was able to detect ripples in the fabric of spacetime.

General Relativity continues to be at the center of work in theoretical and experimental physics. I take this opportunity to note that, in Maple 2017, among the several improvements in the Physics package regarding General Relativity, there is a new package, Physics:-ThreePlusOne, all dedicated to the symbolic manipulations necessary to formulate problems in Numerical Relativity.

The GR functionality implemented in Physics, Physics:-Tetrads and Physics:-ThreePlusOne is unique in computer algebra systems and reflects the Maplesoft intention, for several years now, to provide the very best possible computer algebra environment for Physics, regarding current research activity as well as related education in advanced mathematical-physics methods.

For what is going on in theoretical physics nowadays and its connection with General Relativity, in very short: the unification of gravity with the other forces, check for instance this map from Aug/2015 (by the way a very nice summary for whoever is interested):

It is also interesting the article behind this map of topics as well as this brilliant and accessible presentation by Nima Arkani-Hamed (Princeton):  Quantum Mechanics and Spacetime in the 21st Century, given in the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (Waterloo), November 2014. 

Edgardo S. Cheb-Terrab
Physics, Differential Equations and Mathematical Functions, Maplesoft


Please Wait...