The History of Classical Gravitational Theory and General Relativity

The Scientific Revolution brought a new way of thinking about the universe, and brought an end to Europe’s medieval past. Many scientists have devoted their lives to creating new ideas about the physical universe. These scientists created the assumption that the universe and nature are governed by mathematical laws. Each of the three scientists, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, and Isaac Newton contributed to the breakdown of the medieval world view. Nicolaus Copernicus thought past the idea of a geocentric universe, and established the idea of a heliocentric theory, or a sun-centered universe. Johannes Kepler presented the idea of an ellipse, otherwise known as the planets following an oval shaped orbit, and not a perfect circle. Finally,

Ptolemy, a Roman astronomer came up with the theory that the universe revolved around Earth and all the creatures inhabiting it (Doc. C). This theory, The Geocentric Universe of Ptolemy, was adjusted by most of the people during The Middle Ages. However, much later on, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer, disagreed with Ptolemy’s theory. With his use of math and reason, he came up with a new theory called The Heliocentric Universe of Copernicus (Doc. C). He said that the universe & Earth itself revolves around the sun. The Church denied this theory because they did not want to be proven wrong. If the Church was wrong about this part of the universe, this would then cause man to wonder what else they could be wrong about, or even lied to them about. This new theory taught men to think for themselves and not to rely on the Church for

In concordance with Christian doctrines, this system implies that heaven and the throne of God lie beyond the tenth sphere. On the other hand, during the first half of the 16th century, Polish cleric Copernicus developed an astronomical model which positions the motionless Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth, the moon, and six other planets revolving at a constant speed around it. He argues that all stars were at rest and that their nightly movements are simply indications of the earth’s rotation. However, members of the Church, especially Protestants, who interpreted the Bible literally, refused to grant Copernicus credit for his theory. Nevertheless, once released among the population, the Copernican theory raised support from various scholars, a few of whom, such as Brahe, Kepler, and Galileo, went on to dedicate their career to solidify its legitimacy. With their use of mathematical reasoning, instead of antic philosophy, the Copernican theory finally became justified among the population. Pertaining to its influence among laypeople, the Copernican theory raised various questions against the

The general and widespread acceptance of Sir Isaac Newton’s models and laws may often be taken for granted, but this has not always been so. Throughout history, scientists and philosophers have built on each other’s theories to create improved and often revolutionary models. Although Newton was neither the first nor the last to bring major innovations to society, he was one of the most notable ones; many of his contributions are still in use today. With the formulation of his laws of motion, Sir Isaac Newton contributed to the downfall of Aristotelianism and provided a universal quantitative system for approximating and explaining a wide range of phenomena of space and the physics of motion, revolutionizing the study and understanding

Einstein has brought many insights of life including the theory of the speed of light, which has led to the special theory of relativity that molded the way science, is today. “For example, various experiments, including the Michelson-Morley experiment, failed to measure the expected changes in the speed of light relative to the motion of the Earth. Due to this Einstein recognized that light has a measured speed that is independent of the speed of the observer” (“Albert Einstein.” 4). “Einstein showed in 1907 that mass is related to energy by the famous equation E=mc^2, which indicates the enormous amount of energy that is stored as mass, some of which is released in radioactivity and nuclear radiations, for example in the sun” (4).This enabled Einstein to be able to start and finish the general theory of relativity.

The Special Theory of relativity is an acknowledged physical theory that revolutionized advancements in the relationship between space, and time. The theory is one of the most interesting discoveries that are still used today in science fiction movies such as Star Wars, and Star Trek through the use of black holes, and time travel due to it’s astonishing results, and it occurrence at speeds close to the speed light, which can be appealing to a wide range of audience. This was a harvest from six years of extremely handwork by Albert Einstein. Einstein used resources that were widely available to the public due to his economic constraints. It wasn’t until 1905, when Einstein finally had finished and published his discoveries, and gatherings

Among these people were Copernicus who believed the sun was at the center of the world and the earth, stars and planets revolved around it. Danish astronomer Brahe helped contribute to this idea by contributing a large mass of data about the universe that he was able to discover. His student Kepler kept his ideas going, as he formulated many laws of planetary motion. He said the orbits around the sun were elliptical, planets don’t move in a uniform speed and the time a planet completes its orbit is related to its distance from the sun. Meanwhile, Florentine Galileo decided to use experiments to find out what happened and not what should happen, and discovered that a uniform force makes a uniform acceleration as well as inertia laws, that an object will be in motion forever unless stopped by another force.

Astronomy was a highly debated topic between scientists and the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church believed that the Earth was the center of the universe and there was a place for all of the gods/zodiacs in it. An astronomer from the Middle Ages, Ptolemy, created the drawing of the universe which depicted the Earth in the very center of the universe, or geocentric. The geocentric universe, also contained an outer name in latin translating directly to “The Empire of Heaven and the Home of God and the Elect( document C )”. Contrary to the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church another astronomer from The Renaissance created a sun centered universe or heliocentric. This astronomers name was Copernicus, he created his universe based on observation of the movement of the planets and mathematics. During the Middle Ages it was strongly believed that the universe was geocentric, but now astronomers like Copernicus have disproved these beliefs with concrete

His model said that the planets moved not in circles around the sun, but in ellipses and the mathematics was proved using three laws:

In 1916 Einstein proposed his new General Theory of Relativity that built upon Newton's Universal Theory of Gravitation which showed "that gravity is responsible for the motions of both planets and falling objects near the Earth" (Fix, p 86). Einstein' theory "describes gravity as a curvature in four-dimensional spacetime" (Singh, p. 502). The original intent of the theory was to explain the inaccuracies of Mercury's orbit when using Newton's law and the Sun's bending of light.

Moreover, the transfer of ideas also had an intellectual impact in fields such as astronomy, medicine, and mathematics. To begin with, Claudius Ptolemy, a Greek scholar, created a model of how the solar system is arranged, the Earth in the center (document one). Claudius Ptolemy most likely described the inverse with the Earth in the center because of the limited technology during his time period, some time around 100 AD. Persian Muslim scholar, Al-Biruni, describes the Hindu view of how the earth is shaped and that the earth is the center of the universe (document six). Al-Biruni is a Persian Muslim and not a Hindu and therefore writes about these conceptions with the point of view of an outsider. During this time period, various scholars came up with

The first theory of the placement of the planets and stars to disprove the theocentric theory, God centered, was the geocentric theory. This idea began with the philosopher Aristotle in fourth century B.C. Greece, and was expanded and better explained in second century A.D. by Greek Astronomer Ptolemy. The main point of this theory was that the Earth was the center of the universe. This was “proven” by the observation of the sun moving around the earth every day, as seen in the

The value of G, the universal gravitational constant, was not experimentally determined until until nearly a century later by Henry Cavendish using a torison balance. His instrument to determine the value of G included a light, rigid rod with two small lead spheres attached to the ends. The rod was suspended by a thin wire, and when the rod twisted, the torsion of the wire exerted a torsional force that was proportional to the angle of rotation of the rod. Cavendish was able to determine the gravitational force of attraction between the two masses. By measuring the masses, distance, and force, Cavendish

Nicholas Copernicus was the first to question the universal truths and teachings of the church. He devised a theory that the earth along with the other planets revolved around the sun. This theory disagreed with Aristotle and the old teachings that the universe revolved around the earth, and that man was the center of the universe.

General Relativity is a two part theory created by the German physicist, Albert Einstein. The two sections of relativity is special relativity and general relativity. Special relativity focuses more on lines, constant-velocity motion on the mass of objects, the passage throughout time, and that passing the speed of light is impossible. General relativity deals with accelerated motion, gravitational fields on mass, size, and time. General relativity also states that matter and space effect each other and that the universe ends and there may be more universes out there. Relativity also includes space-time. Many people think that space and time are completely different variables, but physicists often combine them into “space-time”. Space-time is a four-dimensional coordinate system used in relativity and other areas of physics. The dimensions are, length, width, height, and the 4th is the time dimension.