Tevian Dray (born March 17, 1956) is an American mathematician who has worked in

general relativity General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity and Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. ...

mathematical physics Mathematical physics refers to the development of mathematics, mathematical methods for application to problems in physics. The ''Journal of Mathematical Physics'' defines the field as "the application of mathematics to problems in physics and t ...

geometry Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is c ...

, and both

science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

and mathematics education. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 2010. He has primarily worked in the area of classical general relativity. His research results include confirmation of the existence of solutions of

Einstein's equation In the general theory of relativity, the Einstein field equations (EFE; also known as Einstein's equations) relate the geometry of spacetime to the distribution of matter within it. The equations were published by Einstein in 1915 in the form ...

containing

gravitational radiation Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...

, the use of

computer algebra In mathematics and computer science, computer algebra, also called symbolic computation or algebraic computation, is a scientific area that refers to the study and development of algorithms and software for manipulating mathematical expression ...

to classify exact solutions of Einstein's equation, an analysis of a class of gravitational shock waves (including one of the few known exact 2-body solutions in general relativity), and the study of

signature A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

change, a possible model for the

Big Bang The Big Bang event is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. Various cosmological models of the Big Bang explain the evolution of the observable universe from t ...

. More recently, his work has focused on applications of the

octonions In mathematics, the octonions are a normed division algebra over the real numbers, a kind of Hypercomplex number, hypercomplex Number#Classification, number system. The octonions are usually represented by the capital letter O, using boldface or ...

to the theory of fundamental particles. He was a graduate student under

Rainer K. Sachs Rainer Kurt "Ray" Sachs (born June 13, 1932) is a German-American mathematical physicist, with interests in general relativistic cosmology and astrophysics, as well as a computational radiation biologist. He is professor emeritus of Mathematics an ...

at Berkeley, where he received his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

in 1981, although much of his dissertation research was done in collaboration with

Abhay Ashtekar Abhay Vasant Ashtekar (born 5 July 1949) is an Indian theoretical physicist. He is the Eberly Professor of Physics and the Director of the Institute for Gravitational Physics and Geometry at Pennsylvania State University. As the creator of Asht ...

. The context of his dissertation, titled ''The Asymptotic Structure of a Family of Einstein-Maxwell Solutions'' focused on families of

spacetimes In physics, spacetime is a mathematical model that combines the three dimensions of space and one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold. Spacetime diagrams can be used to visualize relativistic effects, such as why differen ...

which describe accelerating black holes, and which contain gravitational radiation. This demonstrated the existence of exact radiating solutions to the Einstein field equations.
He is currently a professor of mathematics at

Oregon State University Oregon State University (OSU) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in Corvallis, Oregon. OSU offers more than 200 undergraduate-degree programs along with a variety of graduate and doctoral degree ...

. In addition to his ongoing work in mathematical physics, he has made significant contributions in science education, where he directs the Vector Calculus Bridge Project, an attempt to teach vector calculus the way it is used by scientists and engineers, and is part of the development team of the Paradigms Project, a complete restructuring of the undergraduate physics major around several core "paradigms". He has written a book on special relativity and a sequel on general relativity using differential forms. , and is coauthor of a book on the octonions released in 2015.Reviews of ''The Geometry of the Octonions'': * * *

Bibliography

* * * * * (2012) Tevian Dray, ''The Geometry of Special Relativity'' (

A K Peters A K Peters, Ltd. was a publisher of scientific and technical books, specializing in mathematics and in computer graphics, robotics, and other fields of computer science. They published the journals '' Experimental Mathematics'' and the ''Journa ...

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information tec ...

) * (2014) Tevian Dray, ''Differential Forms and The Geometry of General Relativity'' (

) * (2015) Tevian Dray and Corinne A. Manogue, '' The Geometry of the Octonions'' (

World Scientific World Scientific Publishing is an academic publisher of scientific, technical, and medical books and journals headquartered in Singapore. The company was founded in 1981. It publishes about 600 books annually, along with 135 journals in various ...

)

References

External links

Tevian Dray's home page

Vector Calculus Bridge Project

Paradigms Project
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dray, Tevian 1956 births Living people 20th-century American mathematicians 21st-century American mathematicians American relativity theorists Oregon State University faculty Fellows of the American Physical Society