General Relativity
Puzzled by the planet Mercury (puzzled because of Mercury’s perihelion – when closest to the sun. Every century, Mercury’s perihelion advanced slightly. A change the Newton’s equations that couldn’t account for)
Despite the ability of Newton’s Laws of gravity that precisely predict the motion of the planets, the laws failed when it came to correctly predicting mercury’s orbit.
Newton said that gravity travels instantaneously throughout space. Einstein said that space is curved and this is what makes object move. Curved space was responsible for shifting Mercury’s orbit.
Imagine a trampoline net and you place a bowling ball in the middle. The bowling ball sinks into the trampoline net. Now take a marble and see what happens, it orbits the bowling bowl and slowly moves closer to the ball. Newton would say, form looking from top, there is a force pulling the marble to the bowling ball whereas Einstein says that the trampoline is pushing the ball to the trampoline net.r
Another analogy is sitting on a chair. Newton says that gravity is pulling you down but Einstein says that space is pushing you down.
Approaching Solar eclipse put Einstein’s theory to the test. Photographs were taken of the stars before the eclipse and then afterwards. These pictures were compared to the pictures taken during the eclipse. The photos show that the positions of the stars in the eclipse photo shifted slightly inwards, bending as the light from the stars passed the sun’s gravitational field. This proved that Einstein’s theory was correct.
Puzzled by the planet Mercury (puzzled because of Mercury’s perihelion – when closest to the sun. Every century, Mercury’s perihelion advanced slightly. A change the Newton’s equations that couldn’t account for)
Despite the ability of Newton’s Laws of gravity that precisely predict the motion of the planets, the laws failed when it came to correctly predicting mercury’s orbit.
Newton said that gravity travels instantaneously throughout space. Einstein said that space is curved and this is what makes object move. Curved space was responsible for shifting Mercury’s orbit.
Imagine a trampoline net and you place a bowling ball in the middle. The bowling ball sinks into the trampoline net. Now take a marble and see what happens, it orbits the bowling bowl and slowly moves closer to the ball. Newton would say, form looking from top, there is a force pulling the marble to the bowling ball whereas Einstein says that the trampoline is pushing the ball to the trampoline net.r
Another analogy is sitting on a chair. Newton says that gravity is pulling you down but Einstein says that space is pushing you down.
Approaching Solar eclipse put Einstein’s theory to the test. Photographs were taken of the stars before the eclipse and then afterwards. These pictures were compared to the pictures taken during the eclipse. The photos show that the positions of the stars in the eclipse photo shifted slightly inwards, bending as the light from the stars passed the sun’s gravitational field. This proved that Einstein’s theory was correct.
