![]() So Einstein recommended another way that scientists might test his theory. And it was exactly what astronomers had measured. Using his theory of relativity, he calculated how much Mercury’s orbit should shift. Fred Espenak / Science SourceĮinstein disagreed, arguing there was no other planet. Mercury appears as a small black dot silhouetted against the sun’s brilliant surface. Photo of the planet Mercury passing between the Earth and Sun. So some thought there might be another planet, closer to the sun, that also tugged on Mercury. But when they did the calculations, they found that gravity from the known planets couldn’t explain all of the shift. Some astronomers said that gravity from other planets must be tugging on Mercury and shifting its orbit a bit. Each trip around the sun, Mercury’s closest approach was a little beyond where it had been the orbit before. But Einstein pointed out that his theory was better than Newton’s theory of gravity because it solved a problem about the planet Mercury.Īstronomers keep good records about the orbits of planets moving about the sun. So why did anyone believe it? At first, many people didn’t. Relativity sounds like a very strange theory. Today scientists believe that Einstein’s theory is the best way to describe not only gravity, but also the entire universe. And those pathways are created by the effect of matter on spacetime. Matter moves through spacetime along curving pathways. So events in the universe are referred to as locations in spacetime. In Einstein’s theory, time and space are closely related. Nor was time the only thing that could stretch with relativity. It only showed up by comparing that person’s time relative to what it was back on Earth. Einstein’s math had indicated that time would not seem to slow down to an observer who was speeding along. He called this new idea for gravity the general theory of relativity. But finally, in November 1915, he found the right equation for describing gravity and space. It took several years for Einstein to figure all of this out. Einstein’s descriptions, by contrast, would work even in these environments. Newton’s idea worked when gravity is not especially strong on all scales, such as near the sun or maybe a black hole. So Einstein’s theory was a different way of describing gravity. And that was because that massive object had contorted the shape of the space.Įinstein also showed that the way mass alters space makes bodies move as if they were pulling upon each other, just as Newton had described. So a spaceship - or even a ray of light - would move on a curved line through space as it neared a massive object. It changed notably in the neighborhood of very massive objects, such as a planet, the sun or a Later, Einstein would realize that space, too, was not always constant. Black holes are so massive that nothing can escape their gravitational clutches. It’s seen here pulling in matter from a nearby blue star. That clock-slowing is part of what Einstein called his special theory of relativity.Īn artist’s drawing of a black hole named Cygnus X-1. If you were traveling at high speed in a spaceship, any clocks onboard or even your pulse rate would slow down compared with your friends back home on Earth. It slows down if you are moving very fast. And Einstein had a better idea about gravity.Įarlier, Einstein had discovered that time does not always flow at the same rate. Space and time were not unvarying, as Newton had described them. He grew up to show that Newton was wrong. Albert Einstein was born 192 years later. Apples fell from trees to the ground because of the Earth’s strong pull.Īll of those ideas came from the mind of Isaac Newton, who wrote about them in a famous 1687 book. And gravity pulled massive objects toward each other. ![]() Together, those new papers would outline what would be his general theory of relativity.īefore Einstein came along, scientists believed that space always stayed the same. That’s when this physicist shared the first of four new papers with the Prussian Academy in Berlin, Germany. Some of his final brush strokes emerged on Novema century ago today. While still a relatively young scientist, Albert Einstein painted a new picture of the universe.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |