Posts

General Relativity

Einstein spent 10 years trying to include acceleration in the theory and published his theory of general relativity in 1915. In it, he determined that massive objects cause a distortion in space-time, which is felt as gravity. Sir Isaac Newton quantified the gravity between two objects when he formulated his three laws of motion.  The force tugging between two bodies depends on how massive each one is and how far apart the two lie. Even as the center of the Earth is pulling you toward it (keeping you firmly lodged on the ground), your center of mass is pulling back at the Earth.  But the more massive body barely feels the tug from you, while with your much smaller mass you find yourself firmly rooted thanks to that same force.   Yet Newton's laws assume that gravity is an innate force of an object that can act over a distance.  Einstein realized that massive objects caused a distortion in space-time.

Understanding General Relativity

General relativity is  the  geometric   theory  of  gravitation  published by  Albert Einstein  in 1915 and  the current description of gravitation in  modern physics . General  relativity  generalizes  special relativity  and  Newton's law of universal gravitation , providing a unified description of gravity as a geometric property of  space  and  time , or  spacetime . The  curvature  of spacetime  is directly related to the  energy  and  momentum  of whatever  matter  and  radiation  are present. The relation is specified by the Einstein field equations , a system of  partial differential equations . The  Einstein field equations  comprise the set of 10  equations  in Albert  Einstein 's general theory of relativity that describe the fundamental interaction of gravitation as a result of spa...