The thermodynamics of gravitational radiation

I conjecture, and show for a large class of cases, that given a spacelike hypersurface on which is an arbitrary distribution of linearized gravitons and matter, the latter satisfying the positive energy condition, the expectation value of the number of events in which a graviton is absorbed by or scattered inelastically from the matter within any future time,t, is always less then the expectation value of the number of gravitons in the initial state (except for a set of initial configurations of measure zero). Consequences of this result are: (1) the impossibility of any system containing gravitational radiation reaching thermal equilibrium in a finite time, (2) the absence of an ultraviolet catastrophe for gravitational radiation, (3) the impossibility of measuring accurately the quantum state of the linearized gravitational field, and (4) the impossibility of constructing a gravitational wave laser.This essay received the second award from the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 1983 [Ed.].