Response to Fackerell's Article

Abstract

E. D. Fackerell claims: 1) that Alley and Yilmaz treatment of parallel slabs in general relativity is wrong because the Yilmaz metric used is not a solution of the field equations of general relativity; 2) he also claims that the correct treatment of the parallel slab problem in general relativity must be based on the so-called Taub metric. We show below that both of Fackerell's claims are false. His first claim is based on his failure to distinguish the matter-free regions and the regions with matter. His second claim is based on his failure to recognize that for the Taub metric the left-hand side, hence also the right-hand side of the field equations, are identically zero everywhere. Thus no material systems can be treated via the Taub metric.