Roy Kerr

Biography

The capacities of Roy Kerr were recognized very early, whereas he studied with the college Saint Andrew of Christchurch. It enters then to the Canterbury University College of the Université of New Zealand, which will become later the Université of Canterbury, from where it leaves graduate in 1955 . Roy Kerr leaves then for the Université Cambridge where it obtains its thesis in 1960 on the study of the equations of the movement in general relativity. After having been post-doctoral researcher with the University of Syracuse followed by a short passage to the military base of the US Air Force of Wright-Patterson, it is named with the Université of Austin to the Texas in 1962, where it finds shortly after the solution which makes it famous. In 1971, Roy Kerr turns over to the university of Canterbury, where it remains until is reprocessed in 1993. It was during ten years director of the service of mathematics of the university. It received the Médaille Hughes in 1984, as well as the Médaille Hector in 1982 and the Médaille Rutherford in 1993.

Work

The solution found by Kerr describes the Espace-temps in the vicinity of a Black hole in rotation. Since the black holes in rotation are called black holes of Kerr, and the solution which describes them is called Métrique of Kerr (or solution of Kerr). The description of the black holes in rotation represents an important contribution to astrophysics because it is thought that the majority of the black holes are animated of a sufficiently important rotation movement so that this one has a direct influence on its immediate environment. One at present (2005) did not observe black holes directly, but the study of the spectrum S of the discs of accretion observed since the Ground makes it possible in theory to determine if the central object is indeed a black hole of Kerr. Certain observations still prone to debates seem to go in this direction (see for example).

The discovery of the solution of Kerr played a imporant part because it initiated what one today calls with the jourd' the golden age of the physics of the black holes , period of about fifteen year which saw a considerable renewal of attention for the physics of the black holes after their astrophysical interest had been carried out. The most obvious impact of work of Roy Kerr is seen in the comments which were made on their subject. The solution of Kerr is presented like the most important exact solution of all the equations of physics . Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Nobel Prize of physics in 1983 describes the solution of Kerr as follows:

Of all my life of scientist, long 45 years, my more intense experiment was to realize than the exact solution with the equations of Einstein of the general relativity discovered by the New Zealand mathematician Roy Kerr provides to an absolutely exact representation of an innumerable quantity black holes who populate the universe. This shiver felt in front of the beauty, the incredible fact that a discovery resulting from a search for esthetics in mathematics finds its reflection exact in Nature, persuades me that the beauty is it with what the human spirit is sensitive in what it has of more fundamental and of deeper.

Of its own consent, Kerr had not realized the importance of its work at this time, as the article testifies some which it publishes, very short (a page and half), and concentrating only on purely mathematical aspects.

References

Brian Woods, Professor Roy Kerr , New Zealand Mathematical Society Newsletter, n°58, 1993.
Roy Kerr and the spin one black holes . Extract of the conference given at the time of the 70e birthday of Roy Kerr.
Marilyn Head, Man off mystery , The listener, vol. 195, n°3359, September 25th - October 1st, 2004.

External bonds

of Roy Kerr, dating from the Eighties
of Roy Kerr, dating from the years 2000
Gravitational Field off has off Spinning Mass ace year Example Algebraically Special Metrics, the article published by Kerr in 1963 in Physical Review Letters describing the metric one of Kerr, Phys. rev. Lett. 11 , 237 (1963)
Conference given to the university of Canterbury in 2004 at the time of the 70 {{E}} birthday of Roy Kerr
Article on Roy Kerr on the site of Eric Weisstein
Example of work trying to detect the presence of a black hole of Kerr, ApJ 69 , L570 (2002)

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