NPAC Technical Report SCCS-680
A Description of the Initial Value Formulation of Vacuum General Relativity for the Non-Specialist
Mark Miller
Submitted October 10 1994
Abstract
In any specialized scientific endeavor, the workers in that specific
area develop their own language, or jargon, that can be confusing for
the non-specialist (and, at times, for the specialist, too!). This
makes it difficult for scientists to ``latch-on'' to fields that are
outside their area of expertise. General Relativity is certainly no
exception. In light of the Computational Grand Challenge Program
``Black Hole Binaries: Coalescence and Gravitational Radiation,''
there is a need for a ``jargonless'' description of the formulation of
General Relativity that is used in computer simulations (i.e. its
initial value formulation). This paper is an attempt at meeting this
need.