Einstein's Theory of General Relativity

[Drone]

Videos, links, anything.

http://www.space.com/17661-theory-general-relativity.html

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/04may_epic/

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Loved this bit from the 2nd link

The four gyroscopes in GP-B are the most perfect spheres ever made by humans. These ping pong-sized balls of fused quartz and silicon are 1.5 inches across and never vary from a perfect sphere by more than 40 atomic layers. If the gyroscopes weren't so spherical, their spin axes would wobble even without the effects of relativity.

If we couldnt create perfect spheres we couldnt conduct experiments like those in GP-B.
Heres a quick vid on a very round thing, if you just want to know how, start at 08.00, its worth watching from the start though.

Gravity Visualized

@Frick
EDIT I saw a documentary on TV ages ago, unbelievably the most perfect spheres are created by one man, by touch, Incredible....i will find the vid and put it here if i can find it.


heres some New Scientist stuff
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14229-roundest-objects-in-the-world-created.html#.VONhrPmsWSo

 

[Frick]

Were they made in space?

 

[Drone]

Some video, an interesting link

http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_relativity_general.html

and famous consequence of Einstein's theory: Precession of the perihelion of Mercury

http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/336k/Newtonhtml/node116.html

In a nutshell:

Mercury moves around the Sun in ~ 116 days and its elliptical orbit itself also moves around the sun once every 3 million years. It's like those old yodawg jokes <so you can orbit while you orbit>

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I wonder if the Ancients had any idea of precession

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism

they had at least one example of an astrological computing device.

 

[Drone]

They had no idea that space-time can be warped. Ideas of the curvature of spacetime stem from relativity theory.

And let's face it even now none of us can imagine curved space. We can imagine a curved line, a curved surface but not curved 3D space.

I can understand maths describing 4D or even higher dimensions and even Riemannian geometry but I'm unable to visualize it in my brain because our brains work like if our world was Euclidian but our world isn't Euclidian. It's curved and warped, it's Riemannian. We always simplify everything and pretend that our world is simple 3D Euclidian space lol but it's not.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Melon...........twisted.........again !

thanks a bunch @Drone

 

[Drone]

Europe's 5th and 6th Galileo satellites - subject to complex salvage maneuvers following their launch last year into incorrect orbits - will help to perform an ambitious year-long test of Einstein's most famous theory.

The satellites' orbits remain elliptical, with each satellite climbing and falling some 8500 km twice per day. It is those regular shifts in height, and therefore gravity levels, that are valuable to researchers.

Albert Einstein predicted a century ago that time would pass more slowly close to a massive object. It has been verified experimentally, most significantly in 1976 when a hydrogen maser atomic clock on Gravity Probe A was launched 10 000 km into space, confirming the prediction to within 140 parts in a million.

This new effort takes advantage of the passive hydrogen maser atomic clock aboard each Galileo, the elongated orbits creating varying time dilation, and the continuous monitoring thanks to the global network of ground stations. The results are expected in about one year, projected to quadruple the accuracy on the Gravity Probe A results.

 

[dorsetknob]

Good to see that they may get some useful unexpected science from those cocked up satellite orbital placements

 

[Drone]

Fundamental Ideas and Problems of the Theory of Relativity

Lecture delivered to the Nordic Assembly of Naturalists at Gothenburg, July 11, 1923

Download pdf:

English
German




Albert Einstein - Leiden Lecture, 1920

Read here

 

[xfia]

this wouldnt be right without the opinion of one the worlds most brilliant physicists

joe and brian got me

 

[64K]

I picked up a book written by Einstein on Relativity that was intended to help people get a grasp of this subject that aren't physicists and I was lost pretty quickly. iirc this was the book

 

[Drone]

I picked up a book written by Einstein on Relativity that was intended to help people get a grasp of this subject that aren't physicists and I was lost pretty quickly. iirc this was the book

Even physicists struggle with it. Einstein was way ahead of his time. Relativity is so revolutionary even 100 years later. Btw that's a really good book.

Understanding relativity without knowing physics/maths/geometry is simply impossible. All those asap pseudo-science videos won't really help.

 

[xfia]

pseudo? einstein while a great thinker is not on the level of brian cox.. like seriously the crap you have said so far... ego.
there is a reason why he is the science face for pbs. tho you may not even know anything about pbs being a government institution for public education. He could take that einstein book cut out the nonsense and that would be the only way I would read it.
sorry you cant visualize anything but thats YOUR brain.. not humans.
you should be careful about slandering cern geniuses especially while your saying half your brain is broken and not presenting any actual point.. let alone expanding on it.
your ego will now probably tell you that I am wrong and brian cox could never measure up to einstein but its wrong.. why? information!! lets say you wanted to create your own race but you realize to do so you need a planet first and to tera form it.. well its going to take a life time to just figure out step one.

 

[Drone]

pseudo? einstein while a great thinker is not on the level of brian cox.. like seriously the crap you have said so far... ego.
there is a reason why he is the science face for pbs. tho you may not even know anything about pbs being a government institution for public education. He could take that einstein book cut out the nonsense and that would be the only way I would read it.
sorry you cant visualize anything but thats YOUR brain.. not humans.
you should be careful about slandering cern geniuses especially while your saying half your brain is broken and not presenting any actual point.. let alone expanding on it.
your ego will now probably tell you that I am wrong and brian cox could never measure up to einstein but its wrong.. why? information!! lets say you wanted to create your own race but you realize to do so you need a planet first and to tera form it.. well its going to take a life time to just figure out step one.

First: I wasn't talking about Cox because I didn't even watch those videos, I was talking about bullshit youtube videos like general relativity in 30 seconds or something. Second, what's with those personal attacks? Who the hell are you to tell me what I know and what I don't. Telling that Einstein's book is full of nonsense already shows that you're the biggest retard ever.

 

[xfia]

maybe you did and maybe you didnt but if you followed modern physics you would know some discussion from 1920 would mostly be useless.. explaining theory that has been disproven or trying to sell what is known as fact today.
i say half of it is nonsense but i am not as humble about it as todays physicists that would explain it like i did in my last sentence that you apparently ignored just like the visual representation of what you named the thread.

 

[Drone]

maybe you did and maybe you didnt but if you followed modern physics you would know some discussion from 1920 would mostly be useless.. explaining theory that has been disproven or trying to sell what is known as fact today.
i say half of it is nonsense but i am not as humble about it as todays physicists that would explain it like i did in my last sentence that you apparently ignored just like the visual representation of what you named the thread.

Einstein's theory of relativity is old and incomplete because neither Einstein himself nor anyone else had power to complete it.

But seriously you say that it's disproven? What the hell. Everyday there's a new manifestation of Relativity that's being proved. Just because it started in early 20th century doesn't mean it's not working today. All maths are still valid today. Hence, it doesn't matter what relativity book people read these days. All "modern" scientists/writers write the same books on Relativity just with more "modern" language and jargon. Nothing in relativity was disproven or reinvented. And if you don't like my threads just don't post here.

 

[xfia]

some of it is disproven just like some of it is a major thread of physics that holds it together.
i would have to disagree that it does not matter what modern science book is read.. some scientists cant even agree on the speed of light but brian will tell you exactly what he thinks it is with his experience at the lhc.

 

[silkstone]

@xfia The only things Einstein was actually wrong about was the cosmological constant. Which, in fact, he was actually right about at first before dismissing the idea as his "Biggest blunder".

Drone is right about humans not being able to "visualize" much of Einstein's work. I agree that we can make visualizations of it, but any visual representation is surely flawed. You draw me a picture, or make me a model of space and time bending and say that that is an accurate representation. you might draw a 2D plane and represent it being warped into the 3rd dimension, but this is not accurate.

Things like this can be conceptualized, i.e. we can understand what is happening. Any attempt to think about what it would actually 'look like' is the path to insanity, because it would look normal, we can not actually 'see' the bending of space-time.

 

[Steevo]

Spacetime from our perspective looks like a blur of everything that happened frozen in the discrete samples we measure for a reference in the ever moving 4th time dimension, and everything is relative to the observer, so a spaceman that left earth would see it move faster as they went faster, and their reality or perspective would never match those of others.

 

[xfia]

to say path to insanity would only make you seem to be a christian radical but i can agree to disagree on visual representation

 

[silkstone]

Spacetime from our perspective looks like a blur of everything that happened frozen in the discrete samples we measure for a reference in the ever moving 4th time dimension, and everything is relative to the observer, so a spaceman that left earth would see it move faster as they went faster, and their reality or perspective would never match those of others.

That is true, if you were able to actually 'see' what was happening. It's more the actual 'bending' of space time or what it would look like. As it is not really 'bending' or 'warping,' the best we can do is come up with analogies which only really model what is happening. The more you try to visualize these things, the more confusing it becomes. The majority of these concepts can only really be explained mathematically. It is not that some people are able to do it and others aren't, it is that we have visual concept of anything other than the 3-spacial dimensions and when trying to 'bend' those dimensions into a fourth spacial dimension, as human brains aren't able to perceive a 4th special dimension, it is impossible to visualize.

In a similar way, we can not visualize non-existence, i.e. what is beyond the 'edge' of the universe? The answer to this is not 'nothing' as nothingness is still existence. Go ahead, visualize non-existence. What do you see, describe it?

Edit - And I am a true believer in Pastafarianism. I can not believe that Zombie's are real.

Edit 2 - https://www.quora.com/Relativity-physics/If-matter-bends-spacetime-what-does-it-bend-in
There are some good descriptions about what is actually happening in this thread. They should allow you to 'conceptualize' it a little better.

 

[xfia]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster

not sure if your joking but this^
these peoples brains are truly broken wanting others to be broken with them and feed off the unconsciousness.

 

[silkstone]

Read up on the history of the church (of the FSM) and it's purpose. It should become clear.

 

[xfia]

I am the sentience that rises from what is eternal.. I am a wave and a particle.. I exist here and there while being bound to the physical... I observe and worlds change..