Intuitively, a Cauchy surface is a plane in space-time which is like an instant of time; its significance is that giving the initial conditions on this plane determines the future (and the past) uniquely.
More precisely, a Cauchy surface is any subset of space-time which is intersected by every non-spacelike, inextensible curve, i.e. any causal curve, exactly once.
A partial Cauchy surface is a hypersurface which is intersected by any causal curve at most once.
The name is for Augustin Louis Cauchy.
Read more about Cauchy Surface: Discussion, Cauchy Horizon
Famous quotes containing the word surface:
“When we are in love, the sentiment is too great to be contained whole within us; it radiates out to our beloved, finds in her a surface which stops it, forces it to return to its point of departure, and it is this rebound of our own tenderness which we call the other’s affection and which charms us more than when it first went out because we do not see that it comes from us.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)