The Feb 8 issue of WSJ did a very nice review of this book (Pedro Ferreira). Learnt a lot abt theory of relativity and how it led to other related theories. My summary of the book summary ( by Sam Kean).
Re: The Perfect Theory
"Einstein started with special relativitty," which unified electromagnetism and laws of mechanics & motion. Per the latter if Monk throws spitball forward at queer while in a moving train, the speed of the soitball a seen by Southie standing on the side of the tracks is trainspeed plus MSBSP, where MSBSP is Monk spitball speed. This don't hold true for light. Per electromagnetism theory lightspeed of the laser that queer points at Monk in retaliation as seen by Southie is same as if queer and Monk were to be outside the train.
Re: The Perfect Theory
So Einstein found a way around this apparent contradiction. He kept speed of light constant and then reworked eqns from both theories to accommodate the constant light speed condition. Thus was born the theory of special relativity. It "abolished the very notions of absolute space and abdlutr time". But this theory did not include "accelerated motion" and gravity. Thus was born General Relativity theory".
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This new theory was born out of thought expts. Where Mr E vidualized sadoing up on a beam of light and riding around on it! His theory allowed prediction of correct orbit of mercury (no TLK, not the liquid metal at RT). Newton's theory of gravity, which did not account for "relativistic curvature of space-time" didn't get said orbit correctly.
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This theory allowed prediction of bending o light rays by gravity.
Now my head is exploding. Time out.
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Now other scientists git in on the act and took this theory to new levels much to Einstein's chagrin and disapporival. Per E the universe was static AND finite. But others noted the equations of Gen Relativity could well describe an EXPANDING universe. Ergo, the Universe could have started in a single moment ( and single point?). Thus was born the Big Bang theory - pun intended.
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Otgers postulated thar when a giant star collapses inward, the G field would be so STRONG that escaping it would require traveling faster than speed of light. This was a no no for E. Decades later, Robert Oppenheimer later proved these black holes do exist.
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Kurt Godel hypothesized time travel. Since E had shown space and time were intertwined.
So friends, much was accomplished by doing thought experiments. Which any of you can do. Dont require no fancy computers.
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All of this met with Einstein's disapproval. He was a roadblocks in last few yrs of his life.
By 1948 this field was not deemed promising. Quantum physics took its turn on center stage.Till Stephen Hawkins revived it in the 1970s.
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Issues to be reconciled
Incompatibility of relativity and quantum physics.
Dark matter. Which makes 96% of the universe. What the heck is that?
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The omission of Mr. before Monk in some of the posts above was inadvertant and regrettable.
Nice thread Mr scientist, and I like the fact that instead of writing a long single post, you wrote 10 small posts. Easy to read.
Special theory of relativity is amazingly mind boggling. I would love to add to this thread once I would have something valuable to add
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No one ever calls me ms. Scientist
Hmph.
You think we Pakistani men are immature. I have taken that to my heart. I can't extend extra respect to someone who thinks like that about us fine creatures, the Pakistani males that is.
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Still trying to learn. Didn't have a clue before reading the article. (Unlike the true scientists and funda (wo)men here. Cant get enough on this topic.
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Is Hmph a word?
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Issues to be reconciled
Incompatibility of relativity and quantum physics. Dark matter. Which makes 96% of the universe. What the heck is that?
Dark matter is called Dark matter because no one exactly knows what it is. Simply put, the visible matter counts for only 5% of the gravitational pull of the universe. Where the rest of 96% is coming from, no one knows. For the lack of better words, some call it Dark matter, some call it Dark energy, and many believe that its a combination of both.
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That's scary. Looks like being in the Dark has a whole new meaning.