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    Physical Science July 6

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    Shinriel Kudoroba
    General relativity is Einstein's theory of gravitation that equates accelerating and gravitational effects through the equivalence principle. The equivalence principle has strange consequences, such as light being bent by gravity as observed in the 1919 solar eclipse experiment. General relativity also predicts gravitational time dilation, lensing, redshift of light, and time delay. While confirmed by experiments, questions remain about reconciling general relativity with quantum physics into a full theory of quantum gravity.

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    Physical Science July 6

    Uploaded by

    Shinriel Kudoroba
    17 views5 pages
    General relativity is Einstein's theory of gravitation that equates accelerating and gravitational effects through the equivalence principle. The equivalence principle has strange consequences, such as light being bent by gravity as observed in the 1919 solar eclipse experiment. General relativity also predicts gravitational time dilation, lensing, redshift of light, and time delay. While confirmed by experiments, questions remain about reconciling general relativity with quantum physics into a full theory of quantum gravity.

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    Physical Science July 6

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    General relativity is Einstein's theory of gravitation that equates accelerating and gravitational effects through the equivalence principle. The equivalence principle has strange consequences, such as light being bent by gravity as observed in the 1919 solar eclipse experiment. General relativity also predicts gravitational time dilation, lensing, redshift of light, and time delay. While confirmed by experiments, questions remain about reconciling general relativity with quantum physics into a full theory of quantum gravity.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as doc, pdf, or txt
    17 views5 pages

    Physical Science July 6

    Uploaded by

    Shinriel Kudoroba
    General relativity is Einstein's theory of gravitation that equates accelerating and gravitational effects through the equivalence principle. The equivalence principle has strange consequences, such as light being bent by gravity as observed in the 1919 solar eclipse experiment. General relativity also predicts gravitational time dilation, lensing, redshift of light, and time delay. While confirmed by experiments, questions remain about reconciling general relativity with quantum physics into a full theory of quantum gravity.

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    of 5

    Research on:

    GENERAL RELATIVITY
    AND
    GRAVITY

    A. The Principle of Equivalence


    equivalence principle equates accelerating and gravity effects

    The equivalence principle was Einstein's `Newton's apple' insight to gravitation. His thought
    experiment was the following; imagine two elevators, one at rest of the Earth's surface, one
    accelerating in space. To an observer inside the elevator (no windows) there is no physical
    experiment that he/she could perform to differentiate between the two scenarios.
    The equivalence principle is a fundamental law of physics that states that gravitational and
    inertial forces are of a similar nature and often indistinguishable. In the Newtonian form it
    asserts, in effect, that, within a windowless laboratory freely falling in a uniform gravitational
    field, experimenters would be unaware that the laboratory is in a state of non-uniform motion.
    All dynamical experiments yield the same results as obtained in an inertial state of uniform
    motion unaffected by gravity.

    although a simple and common sense assumption, the equivalence principle has
    strange consequences

    An immediate consequence of the equivalence principle is that gravity bends light. To


    visualize why this is true imagine a photon crossing the elevator accelerating into space. As
    the photon crosses the elevator, the floor is accelerated upward and the photon appears to fall
    downward. The same must be true in a gravitational field by the equivalence principle.

    such as, photons will be effected by gravity, even though they have zero mass

    The principle of equivalence renders the gravitational field fundamentally different from all
    other force fields encountered in nature. The new theory of gravitation, the general theory of
    relativity, adopts this characteristic of the gravitational field as its foundation.

    two classical tests of general relativity:

    There were two classical test of general relativity; the first was that light should
    be deflected by passing close to a massive body. The first opportunity occurred during a total
    eclipse of the Sun in 1919.

    the first is the deflection of starlight by the Sun's gravity as measured by the 1919
    solar eclipse experiment

    Measurements of stellar positions near the darkened solar limb proved Einstein was right.
    Direct confirmation of gravitational lensing was obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope
    last year.

    B. Some of the Predictions of the General Theory of Relativity


    Some predictions of general relativity differ significantly from those of classical
    physics, especially concerning the passage of time, the geometry of space, the
    motion of bodies in free fall, and the propagation of light. Examples of such
    differences

    include gravitational

    time

    dilation, gravitational

    lensing,

    the gravitational redshift of light, and the gravitational time delay. The predictions of
    general relativity have been confirmed in all observations and experiments to date.

    Although general relativity is not the only relativistic theory of gravity, it is


    the simplest theory that is consistent with experimental data. However, unanswered
    questions remain, the most fundamental being how general relativity can be reconciled
    with the laws of quantum physics to produce a complete and self-consistent theory
    of quantum gravity.

    C. Findings of General Relativity


    The second part of relativity is the theory of general relativity and lies on two
    empirical findings that he elevated to the status of basic postulates. The first
    postulate is the relativity principle: local physics is governed by the theory of special
    relativity. The second postulate is the equivalence principle: there is no way for an
    observer to distinguish locally between gravity and acceleration.

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