The reason for this subtlety is that the energy and momentum in the gravitational field cannot be unambiguously localized. (See Chapter 20 of .) So, rigorous definitions of the mass in general relativity are not local, as in classical mechanics or special relativity, but make reference to the asymptotic nature of the spacetime. A well defined notion of the mass exists for asymptotically flat spacetimes and for asymptotically Anti-de Sitter space. However, these definitions must be used with care in other settings.