Special and general theory of relativity is one of the most outstanding achievements of human thought. They were formulated at the beginning of the last century and were parts of a single breakthrough of man in understanding the nature of the world. However, there is a striking difference between them, which consists in the fact that the first theory, although contrary to ordinary ideas, was a logical consequence of a generalization of observational facts. The general theory of relativity was the product of a thought experiment. In fact, she was a real intellectual feat of her creator, the German physicist Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein published his work, in which the general theory of relativity was first formulated, in 1915. Like much in modern physics, this theory contradicts our intuitive ideas about the world around us. Ray Dinverno said: "Indeed, the intellectual leap that Einstein took to come from the special theory of relativity to the general is one of the greatest in human history ..." Einstein himself in a letter to a colleague admitted: "I have never worked with such stress ... Compared to the general theory of relativity, the initial theory is a child’s game ...".
According to the special theory of relativity, space and time are not independent substances. On the contrary, they are different manifestations of a single space-time. The relationship between time and spatial coordinates is different for reference frames moving at different speeds. This, in particular, leads to the fact that two events that seem simultaneous for one observer can occur at different points in time for another.
However, this theory did not explain the nature of the forces of attraction. This is what the general theory of relativity did. Its postulates, in addition to the foundations of a special theory, contained the thesis of the inextricable connection of matter and space-time. She says that gravity is due to the curvature of the space around material objects. In other words, matter tells space how to bend, and space tells matter how to move.
Thus, this theory gives a complete picture in which space-time forms the theater of the existence of matter, and, on the other hand, matter determines its properties.
The general theory of relativity is the cornerstone of fundamental science. Despite this, she was awarded the Nobel Prize only in 1993. It was received by astrophysicists Hulz and Taylor for explaining the precession of a double pulsar - a system consisting of two neutron stars. More recently, in 2011, another Nobel Prize was awarded for the contribution of this theory to cosmology and an explanation of the expansion of the universe.
And although its effects are negligible on Earth and in near-Earth space, it has very important practical applications. Probably the most important of them is
global positioning systems
, such as the American GPS and the Russian GLONASS. Without taking into account the effects of the theory of relativity, these systems would be at least an order of magnitude less accurate. Thus, if you are the owner of a phone with a GPS system, then the general theory of relativity also works for you.