History 181B - Class 20

History 181B: Modern Physics

Class 20 (3/7/03)
General relativity and beyond

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Outline

General relativity

    What to do about non-inertial reference frames?
    A new invariance principle: Acceleration and gravity
    The equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass
    The framework: Warped space-time

    Experimental consequences
        Precession of the perihelion of Mercury
        Deflection of light near a massive body: The eclipse of 1919
        A few other consequences

Einstein's hope: Unifying EM and gravitation

Names and terms

Primary	Secondary
general relativity vs. special relativity non-Euclidean geometry parallel postulate Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) gravitational redshift gyroscope	Loránd Eötvös (1848-1919)

Assignment

Werner Heisenberg, "The Theory of Relativity," in Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper & Row, 1958), 110-127.

    Second assignment: Read pp. 121-127.
    Where did general relativity go beyond Einstein's first theory (special relativity)?
    What did Heisenberg see as the philosophical consequences of relativity?