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Einstein's Theory of Relativity Through out time Einstein’s famous theory of relativity has evolved into a more and more complicated theory that has been built upon, but the most important part of this fascinating theory are the special theory, general theory, and the concept of gravity. Einstein’s theory of relativity was first published 1905 it involves a profound analysis of space and time special and general theory were thought up by Einstein and gravity lead to the finding of the general theory Special theory was the first of two documents published by Einstein on his theory of relativity; in 1905 he dismissed the problem of absolute motion by denying its existence. Einstein said that no particular object in the universe is suitable as an absolute frame of reference that is at res with respect to space any object is a suitable frame of reference and the motion of any object can be referred to that frame. For example it is just as correct to say that a train moves past the station or that a station moves past a train. Galileo and Newton had the conception crucial to Newton’s thinking is that there is an absolute space, independent of the things in that space. (Professor David M. Harrison, University of Toronto) General Relativity is considered a sequel to special theory it was published in 1915 in it, Einstein develops a theory of general relativity in which he considered objects accelerated with respect to one another. The purpose of developing this theory was to explain current conflicts between the laws of relativity and the law of gravity. This new concept was based on the principle of equivalence. The principle of equivalence holds that forces produced by gravity are in every way equivalent to forces produced by acceleration, so that it is theoretically impossible to distinguish gravitational and acceleration forces by experiment. (Professor Alan Lightman, MIT) The law of gravity is well known to everyone, but people really don’t know how it actually ties into the theory of relativity. If gravity is equivalent to acceleration, and if motion affects measurements of time and space (as shown in special relativity), then it follows that gravity does so as well. In particular, the gravity of any mass, such as our sun, has the effect of warping the space and time around it. For example, the angles of a triangle no longer add up to 180 degrees, and clocks tick more slowly the closer they are to a gravitational mass like the sun. When "generalized" to include gravitation, the equations of relativity predict that gravity, or the curvature of space-time by matter not only stretches or shrinks distances (depending on their direction with respect to the gravitational field) but also w ill appear to slow down or "dilate" the flow of time. (Professor Alan Lightman, MIT) General relativity, special relativity, and gravity are the cornerstones of the theory of relativity, so to completely understand this concept a person would need these points better explained, I hope I have broken it down enough for everyone to understand the theory of relativity.



Harrison, David. "Special Theory of Relativity." __UPSCALE Home Page__. 5 Feb. 2009 http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/SpecRel/SpecRel.html.

Lightman, Lan. "NOVA | Einstein's Big Idea | Relativity (Lightman Essay) | PBS." __PBS__. 5 Feb. 2009 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/einstein/relativity/.