James W. York

James W. York, Jr. (born July 3 1939 in Raleigh, North Carolina) is an American mathematical physicist who is well known for his many important contributions to the theory of general relativity. In any physical theory, it is important to understand when solutions to the fundamental field equation exist, and answering this question has been the central theme of York's scientific work, culminating in the achievement, with Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, of formulating the Einstein field equation as a well-posed system in the sense of the theory of partial differential equations.

York earned his B.Sc. in 1962 from North Carolina State University.

York is widely credited with being the first to recognize the importance of conformal geometry in the initial value problem, and with introducing concepts now called the York curvature and York time.

York is a recipient of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics from the American Physical Society, where he is a Fellow.

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