The Renaissance of General Relativity: A New Perspective

Abstract

This chapter presents a general historiographical framework for interpreting the renaissance of general relativity as a consequence of the interplay between internal and environmental factors. The internal factors refer to the resilient theoretical framework provided by general relativity to physicists working in diverse and dispersed fields. The external factors relate to the changing working conditions of physicists in the post-World War II period, with the newly created conditions for the mobility of young researchers, for the transfer of knowledge in a growing international community, and for the self-organization of an identifiable community. These external factors created a favorable environment for integrating the dispersed research endeavors under the new heading of “General Relativity and Gravitation” research. This, in turn, provided the conditions for the emergence of a coherent investigation of the theoretical core of general relativity for its own sake and for the creation of a community specifically dedicated to this goal.