Syracuse 1960-61 – A burgeoning international relativity community

There gathered under Peter G. Bergmann’s leadership at Syracuse University in the years 1960 – 61 a cohort of innovative relativists who played crucial roles in the development of general relativity theory in the latter half of the twentieth century. Perhaps the most significant breakthroughs occurred in the analysis of gravitational radiation and associated procedures for constructing solutions of Einstein’s equations. Included in this category are complex techniques which are most naturally described using spinors. Related techniques, based on assumed metric symmetries, established the foundations that led to the discovery of exact solutions representing rotating and electrically charged black holes. Participants included J. Goldberg, Kerr, Komar, Newman, Penrose, Robinson, Sachs, Schücking, and Trautman – with direct links to England, Germany, New Zealand, and Poland – and indirect connections to Belgium and France.