In general relativity, the hole argument is an apparent paradox that much

troubled Albert Einstein while developing his famous field equation.

Some philosophers of physics take the argument to raise a problem for manifold
substantialism, a doctrine that the manifold of events in spacetime is a
"substance" which exists independently of the matter within it. Other
philosophers and physicists disagree with this interpretation, and view the
argument as a confusion about gauge invariance and gauge fixing instead.
[citation needed]

Contents [hide]
1 Einstein's hole argument
2 Disputing the above version of Einstein's hole argument
3 Meaning of coordinate invariance
4 Einstein's resolution
5 Implications of background independence for some theories of quantum gravity
6 See also
7 References
8 Sources
9 External links
Einstein's hole argument[edit]
In a usual field equation, knowing the source of the field determines the field
everywhere.[citation needed] For example, if we are given the current and
charge density and appropriate boundary conditions, Maxwell's equations
determine the electric and magnetic fields. They do not determine the vector
potential though, because the vector potential depends on an arbitrary choice of
gauge.

Einstein noticed that if the equations of gravity are generally covariant, then the
metric cannot be determined uniquely by its sources as a function of the
coordinates of spacetime. The argument is obvious: consider a gravitational
source, such as the sun. Then there is some gravitational field described by a
metric g(r). Now perform a coordinate transformation r \to r' where r' is the
same as r for points which are inside the sun but r' is different from r outside the
sun. The coordinate description of the interior of the sun is unaffected by the
transformation, but the functional form of the metric for coordinate values
outside the sun is changed.

This means that one source, the sun, can be the source of many seemingly
different metrics. The resolution is immediate: any two fields which only differ by

a coordinate transformation are physically equivalent, just as two different vector

potentials which differ by a gauge transformation are equivalent. Then all these
different fields are not different at all.

There are many variations on this apparent paradox. In one version, you consider
an initial value surface with some data and find the metric as a function of time.
Then you perform a coordinate transformation which moves points around in the
future of the initial value surface, but which doesn't affect the initial surface or
any points at infinity. Then you can conclude that the generally covariant field
equations do not determine the future uniquely, since this new coordinate
transformed metric is an equally valid solution. So the initial value problem is
unsolvable in general relativity. This is also true in electrodynamicssince you
can do a gauge transformation which will only affect the vector potential
tomorrow. The resolution in both cases is to use extra conditions to fix a gauge.