History of general relativity

General relativity (GR) is a theory of gravitation that was developed by Albert Einstein between 1907 and 1915, with contributions by many others after 1915. According to general relativity, the observed gravitational attraction between masses results from the warping of space and time by those masses.

Before the advent of general relativity, Newton's law of universal gravitation had been accepted for more than two hundred years as a valid description of the gravitational force between masses, even though Newton himself did not regard the theory as the final word on the nature of gravity. Within a century of Newton's formulation, careful astronomical observation revealed unexplainable variations between the theory and the observations. Under Newton's model, gravity was the result of an attractive force between massive objects. Although even Newton was bothered by the unknown nature of that force, the basic framework was extremely successful at describing motion.

However, experiments and observations show that Einstein's description accounts for several effects that are unexplained by Newton's law, such as minute anomalies in the orbits of Mercury and other planets. General relativity also predicts novel effects of gravity, such as gravitational waves, gravitational lensing and an effect of gravity on time known as gravitational time dilation. Many of these predictions have been confirmed by experiment or observation, while others are the subject of ongoing research.

General relativity has developed into an essential tool in modern astrophysics. It provides the foundation for the current understanding of black holes, regions of space where gravitational attraction is so strong that not even light can escape. Their strong gravity is thought to be responsible for the intense radiation emitted by certain types of astronomical objects (such as active galactic nuclei or microquasars). General relativity is also part of the framework of the standard Big Bang model of cosmology.

Creation of General Relativity

Early investigations

The development of general relativity began in 1907 with the publication of an article by Albert Einstein on acceleration under special relativity. In that article, he argued that free fall is really inertial motion, and that for a freefalling observer the rules of special relativity must apply. This argument is called the Equivalence principle. In the same article, Einstein also predicted the phenomenon of gravitational time dilation. In 1911, Einstein published another article expanding on the 1907 article, in which additional effects such as the deflection of light by massive bodies were predicted.

General covariance and the hole argument

By 1912, Einstein was actively seeking a theory in which gravitation was explained as a geometric phenomenon. At the urging of Tullio Levi-Civita, Einstein began by exploring the use of general covariance (which is essentially the use of curvature tensors) to create a gravitational theory. However, in 1913 Einstein abandoned that approach, arguing that it is inconsistent based on the "hole argument". In 1914 and much of 1915, Einstein was trying to create field equations based on another approach. When that approach was proven to be inconsistent, Einstein revisited the concept of general covariance and discovered that the hole argument was flawed.

The development of the Einstein Field Equations

When Einstein realized that general covariance was actually tenable, he quickly completed the development of the field equations that are named after him. However, he made a now-famous mistake. The field equations he published in October of 1915 were

where Rμν is the Ricci tensor, and Tμν the energy-momentum tensor. This predicted the non-Newtonian perihelion precession of Mercury, and so had Einstein very excited. However, it was soon realized that they were inconsistent with the local conservation of energy-momentum unless the universe had a constant density of mass-energy-momentum. In other words, air, rock and even a vacuum should all have the same density! This inconsistency with observation sent Einstein back to the drawing board. However, the solution was all but obvious, and in November of 1915 Einstein published the actual Einstein field equations:

where R is the Ricci scalar and gμν the metric tensor. With the publication of the field equations, the issue became one of solving them for various cases and interpreting the solutions. This and experimental verification have dominated general relativity research ever since.

Einstein and Hilbert

See also: relativity priority dispute

Although Einstein is credited with finding the field equations, the German mathematician David Hilbert published them in an article before Einstein's article. This has resulted in accusations of plagiarism against Einstein (never from Hilbert), and assertions that the field equations should be called the "Einstein-Hilbert field equations". However, Hilbert did not press his claim for priority and some have asserted that Einstein submitted the correct equations before Hilbert amended his own work to include them. This suggests that Einstein developed the correct field equations first, though Hilbert may have reached them later independently (or even learned of them afterwards through his correspondence with Einstein).[1] However, others have critizised those assertions.[2]

Sir Arthur Eddington

In the early years after Einstein's theory was published, Sir Arthur Eddington lent his considerable prestige in the British scientific establishment in an effort to champion the work of this German scientist. Because the theory was so complex and abstruse (even today it is popularly considered the pinnacle of scientific thinking; in the early years it was even more so), it was rumored that only three people in the world understood it. There was an illuminating, though probably apocryphal, anecdote about this. As related by Ludwik Silberstein,[3] during one of Eddington's lectures he asked "Professor Eddington, you must be one of three persons in the world who understands general relativity." Eddington paused, unable to answer. Silberstein continued "Don't be modest, Eddington!" Finally, Eddington replied "On the contrary, I'm trying to think who the third person is."

Solutions

The Schwarzschild solution

Since the field equations are non-linear, Einstein assumed that they were insoluble. However, in 1916 Karl Schwarzschild discovered an exact solution for the case of a spherically symmetric spacetime surrounding a massive object in spherical coordinates. This is now known as the Schwarzschild solution. Since then, many other exact solutions have been found.

The expanding universe and the cosmological constant

Main article: cosmological constant

In 1922, Alexander Friedmann found a solution in which the universe may expand or contract, and later Georges Lemaître derived a solution for an expanding universe. However, Einstein believed that the universe was apparently static, and since a static cosmology was not supported by the general relativistic field equations, he added a cosmological constant Λ to the field equations, which became

This permitted the creation of steady-state solutions, but they were unstable: the slightest perturbation of a static state would result in the universe expanding or contracting. In 1929, Edwin Hubble found evidence for the idea that the universe is expanding. This resulted in Einstein dropping the cosmological constant, referring to it as "the biggest blunder in my career". At the time, it was an ad hoc hypothesis to add in the cosmological constant, as it was only intended to justify one result (a static universe).

More exact solutions

Progress in solving the field equations and understanding the solutions has been ongoing. The solution for a spherically symmetric charged object was discovered by Reissner and later rediscovered by Nordström, and is called the Reissner-Nordström solution. The black hole aspect of the Schwarzschild solution was very controversial, and Einstein did not believe that singularities could be real. However, in 1957 (two years after Einstein's death in 1955), Martin Kruskal published a proof that black holes are called for by the Schwarzschild Solution. Additionally, the solution for a rotating massive object was obtained by Kerr in the 1960's and is called the Kerr solution. The Kerr-Newman solution for a rotating, charged massive object was published a few years later.

Testing the theory

Main article: Tests of general relativity

The perihelion precession of Mercury was the first evidence that general relativity is correct. Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington's 1919 expedition in which he confirmed Einstein's prediction for the deflection of light by the Sun helped to cement the status of general relativity as a likely true theory. Since then many observations have confirmed the correctness of general relativity. These include studies of binary pulsars, observations of radio signals passing the limb of the Sun, and even the GPS system. For more information, see the Tests of general relativity article.

Alternative theories

Main article: Alternatives to general relativity

Finally, there have been various attempts through the years to find modifications to general relativity. The most famous of these are the Brans-Dicke theory (also known as scalar-tensor theory), and Rosen's bimetric theory. Both of these proposed changes to the field equations, and both suffer from these changes permitting the presence of bipolar gravitational radiation. As a result, Rosen's original theory has been refuted by observations of binary pulsars. As for Brans-Dicke (which has a tunable parameter ω such that ω = ∞ is the same as general relativity), the amount by which it can differ from general relativity has been severely constrained by these observations. However, general relativity and quantum mechanics (a theory that has been experimentally verified more than GR) are known to be inconsistent. Much speculation exists that modifications of GR (but not QM) are needed on the smallest scales (as GR has not been tested rigorously on the smallest scales). In the other camp, speculation exists that QM needs to be modified (for example, it usually assumes a fixed (flat) spacetime background). Most researchers believe that both theories are in need of modification.

Notes

1. ^ Leo Corry, Jürgen Renn, John Stachel: "Belated Decision in the Hilbert-Einstein Priority Dispute", SCIENCE, Vol. 278, 14 November 1997 - article text

2. ^ Friedwart Winterberg's response to the Cory-Renn-Stachel paper as printed in "Zeitschrift für Naturforschung" 59a, 715-719.

3. ^ John Waller (2002), Einstein's Luck, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-860719-9

References

* Pais, Abraham (1982). Subtle is the lord: the science and life of Albert Einstein. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-853907-X.

* Genesis of general relativity series