In 1665, Isaac Newton was sitting under an tree, when he saw an apple fall. All it took was that one moment for Newton to realize that there must be something that pulls things down to Earth's surface. Even more impressive, he realized that the same force that causes an apple to fall from a tree must be responsible for keeping objects in orbit around planets. Newton unified the celestial with the extraterrestrial with equations for gravity that are still used today.
In 1900, when Einstein was 26, he began to think about the behavior of light. He realized that nothing could go faster than the speed of light. But there was one problem: this went directly against Newton's picture of gravity knew that light does not travel instantaneously, and since he knew that nothing traveled faster than light, he concluded that if the sun disappeared, the Earth would not immediately be thrown off orbit, contradictory to Newton's beliefs.
Einsteins final conclusion? A new unifications: There are three dimensions of space and a single dimension of space time. This is what creates gravity. The fabric of space time is warped and bent by heavy objects.
Now Einstein had a new goal: unifying gravity with four equations called Maxwell's equations.
The purpose of string theory is to unify Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
No comments:
Post a Comment