A Century of General Relativity. Part I: History and Intuition

For 2000 years, since the beginning of the era of science, from Buddhist scriptures to Aristotle’s inventions to Newtonian theories, Space-Time was regarded as a background or stage on which things happen. Actors in this drama were planets, stars, electromagnetic fields, you and me. But with the advent of the Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, space-time joined the group of actors or dynamic entities which can act upon and be act upon.

Matter curves Space-Time!

This blog is supposed to be a brief introduction to the idea of relativity and introduce the notion of Space-Time. You can read more about it here.

This is the first part of the series: ‘A Century of General Relativity’. Please read the second one here: Part II: What Good is Relativity?

In 1905, Albert Einstein determined that the laws of physics are the same for all non-accelerating observers, and that the speed of light in vacuum was independent of the motion of all observers. This was the theory of special relativity. It introduced a new framework for all of physics and proposed new concepts of space & time.

Einstein then spent ten years trying to include acceleration in the theory & published his theory of general relativity in 1915. In it, he determined…