Singularities and the geometry of space-time - Charles Misner's copy - photo 1
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Singularities and the geometry of space-time - Charles Misner's copy

Lot 228
28.01.2025 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1360941
Lot 228 | Singularities and the geometry of space-time - Charles Misner's copy
Estimate value
$ 40 000 – 60 000
HAWKING, Stephen (1942 - 2018). Photostatic copy typescript "Singularities and the geometry of space-time", an essay submitted for the Adams Prize, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, 13 December 1966.

A rare copy of Hawking's prize-winning submission for the Adams Prize: Charles Misner's copy. "The aim of this essay is to investigate certain aspects of the geometry of the space-time manifold in the General Theory of Relativity with particular reference to the occurrence of singularities in cosmological solutions ... Undoubtedly, the most important results are the theorems in Chapter 5 on the occurrence of singularities. These seem to imply either that the General Theory of Relativity breaks down or that there could be particles whose histories did not exist before (or after) a certain time. The author's own opinion is that the theory probably does break down but only when quantum gravitational effects become important."

The Adams Prize is awarded by the University of Cambridge for distinguished research in the mathematical sciences: it is one of the most prestigious of the university prizes. Hawking's essay was joint-winner of the 1966 prize, alongside an essay by Roger Penrose, presaging an important period of close collaboration between the two over subsequent years. Hawking had been awarded a research fellowship at Gonville and Caius earlier in 1966, after the grant of his PhD. Hawking first met the American physicist Charles W. Misner during the latter’s 1966-67 visit to Cambridge at the invitation of Hawking’s postgraduate supervisor Dennis Sciama; the two became close, and Hawking visited Misner at his own institution, the University of Maryland, at the end of 1967. Hawking’s work on singularity theorems, which he first published in his 1965 doctoral thesis, overlapped with the research Misner was undertaking on geodesical incompleteness, a notion at the centre of the concepts Hawking was developing with Roger Penrose (the ‘Penrose–Hawking singularity theorems’). Rare. The only other copy of this typescript to come to auction was Hawking's own copy (Christie's, 16 July 2020, lot 34, £27,500).

192 pages, 261 x 200mm., the autograph corrections and insertions comprise one equation added on p.19, o), three corrections on p.125 (substituting the word "future" for "past" in three instances), two insertions on p.137 in autograph ('and L are', 'and L'); one equation on p.136 and two partial equations on p.137 are perhaps in autograph; frequent manuscript corrections and overwriting in another hand throughout. Black cloth binding. Provenance: Charles W. Misner (ownership signature on front pastedown. Dated “Feb ‘67” on the upper right corner of the first blank endpaper.
Place of origin:United Kingdom
Auction house category:Medicine & science, Books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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14.01.2025 – 28.01.2025
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