Charles W. Misner co-developed the canonical formulation of general relativity with Richard Arnowitt and Stanley Deser. Their account separates spatial geometry from its time evolution, expressing the gravitational system through dynamical variables and constraint equations.[ref]
The Dynamics of General Relativity by Richard Arnowitt and others. Original 1962 chapter: canonical variables and constraints; reproduced in 2004
This turns spacetime evolution into an initial-value problem. Initial geometric data cannot be freely assigned component by component; they must satisfy the gravitational constraints.
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Charles W. Misner is an American physicist known for his contributions to general relativity and cosmology. He is one of the authors of the well-known graduate-level textbook "Gravitation," along with Steven Weinberg and Kip S. Thorne. This book, published in 1973, has been influential in the field of theoretical physics and is often used in graduate courses.