Howard Percy Robertson
|
|
Howard Percy Robertson (January 27, 1903 - August 26, 1961) was a scientist known for contributions related to cosmology and the uncertainty principle.
One of Robertson's first landmark papers, a brief note in The Annals of Mathematics, series II, Vol 39, pp 101-104 (1938) entitled "Note on the preceding paper: The two body problem in general relativity" solved that problem within a degreee of approximation not improved on for many decades. Earlier work, such as the Schwarzschild metric, were for a central body that did not move, while Robertson's solution considered two bodies orbiting each other. Nevertheless, his solution failed to include gravitational radiation, so the bodies orbit forever, rather than approaching each other.