Physics 311A Special Relativity courses物理311A狭义相对论课程.washington.pptVIP

Physics 311General Relativity Lecture 14: Gravity: Galileo, Newton, Einstein * Today’s lecture plan General Relativity: a theory of gravitation. Aristotle: “action is only by contact” Gravity of Galileo and Newton: a mysterious force. Einstein: gravitation is a property of space itself. General Relativity – it’s all about gravitation First and foremost, why gravitation rather than gravity? And is there any difference? Technically speaking, both “gravity” and “gravitation” refer to the same phenomenon: massive bodies moving towards one another. “Gravity”, however, was thought to be force mysteriously acting at a distance. Einstein did not accept action at a distance! So, he used the term “gravitation” to describe the curvature of spacetime caused by massive bodies. In General Relativity, and, indeed, in Relativity in General, there is no local gravity. Any free-fall (inertial) frame is local, no gravity exists in it! Effects of gravitation are only noticeable on non-local scale. The history of (our understanding of) gravity Form Aristotle with his “fixed stars” and action by contact only – to Galileo and Newton with their ?ther and action at the distance – to Einstein with his curved space. Aristotle Aristotle’s views dominated science for centuries, in fact impeding the science development. Aristotle postulated that: - action is only possible by direct contact - constant force is required to maintain uniform motion So, if you hold an apple, you are applying a constant force to it – by direct contact! - and it remains in constant motion (rest). If you let apple go, it falls, because there is no force applied to it. Then it reaches the ground, gets into the contact with Earth, and resumes its uniform motion (rest). Thus, there’s no gravity – when the apple is falling, there’s no force acting on it. And, of course, the Sun, the Moon, the stars and planets are all attached to rigid sph