Atticus Rare Books

Über die Eigengravitation des elektrischen Feldes nach der Einstein’schen Theorie [Offprint] from Annalen der Physik 50 pp. 106–120, 1916

Reissner, Hans [Jacob] [also Jacob Johannes Reissner]

Leipzig: Barth, 1916. 1st Edition. FIRST EDITION, OFFPRINT IN ORIGINAL PAPER WRAPS OF THE FIRST SOLUTION OF EINSTEIN’S EQUATION FOR THE METRIC OF A CHARGED POINT MASS. Überreicht vom Verfasser’ (Presented by the Author) appears in print on the front wrap. Hans Jacob Reissner, a German aeronautical engineer with a passion for mathematical physics, solves Einstein’s equation for an electrically charged rotating axially symmetric body.

“In 1915 Einstein completed his general theory of relativity. It did not take long before the first non-trivial exact solution for the Einstein field equations was found by Karl Schwarzschild in 1916 which corresponds to the gravitational field of a spherically symmetric object” (Nordebo, The Reissner-Nordström Metric, 3). Soon after Schwarzschild’s finding, Reissner (in 1916 and in this paper) generalized Schwarzschild’s solution to include an electrically charged object. In 1918, Gunnar Nordström, a Finnish theoretical physicist, “independently developed what is now called the Reissner–Nordström metric [or solution] -- a static solution to the Einstein field equations corresponding to the gravitational field of a charged, nonrotating, spherically symmetric body” (ibid).

With perfect mathematical precision, the Reissner-Nordström solution describes the spacetime geometry around a spherically non-rotating charged body -- “the spherically symmetric, static, exterior field of a charged distribution of mass” (ibid; Stephani, Relativity, 199). Still, “nobody understood the physical meaning of Reissner’s and Nordström’s solution until l1960, when two of [John] Wheeler’s students, John Graves and Dieter Brill, discovered that it describes a charged black hole” (Thorne, Black Holes & Time Warps).

The work of Graves and Brill “showed that because of the charge, the Reissner–Nordström solution describes black holes with two horizons, one at the Schwarzschild radius and the second being a “Cauchy horizon.” It is speculated by some that such black holes (if they existed) would have the ability to disappear and explode into another universe” (History of Physics: The Wenner Collection). Item #1026

CONDITION & DETAILS: Leipzig: Barth. 8vo. [8.75 x 5.5 inches]. Complete. One chip missing from the right edge of the front wrapper (see photo), otherwise bright and clean inside and out. Near fine.

Price: $500.00