Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
In Einstein's theory, it turns out to be impossible to find a general definition for a seemingly simple property such as a system's total mass (or energy). The main reason is that the gravitational field—like any physical field—must be ascribed a certain energy, but that it proves to be fundamentally impossible to localize that energy.
Albert Einstein believed space and time made up a fourth dimension. An example from a string theorist gives a view of what a fourth dimension could be. We move through three dimensions.
Albert Einstein, physicist, 1879-1955, Graphic: Heikenwaelder Hugo,1999 Special relativity is a theory of the structure of spacetime . It was introduced in Einstein's 1905 paper " On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies " (for the contributions of many other physicists and mathematicians, see History of special relativity ).
In four-dimensional spacetime, the analog to distance is the interval. Although time comes in as a fourth dimension, it is treated differently than the spatial dimensions. Minkowski space hence differs in important respects from four-dimensional Euclidean space.
Einstein's theory of relativity is formulated in 4D space, [3] although not in a Euclidean 4D space. Einstein's concept of spacetime has a Minkowski structure based on a non-Euclidean geometry with three spatial dimensions and one temporal dimension, rather than the four symmetric spatial dimensions of Schläfli's Euclidean 4D space.
In Einstein's theory of relativity, the path of an object moving relative to a particular frame of reference is defined by four coordinate functions x μ (τ), where μ is a spacetime index which takes the value 0 for the timelike component, and 1, 2, 3 for the spacelike coordinates.
The cosmological constant was originally introduced in Einstein's 1917 paper entitled “The cosmological considerations in the General Theory of Reality”. [2] Einstein included the cosmological constant as a term in his field equations for general relativity because he was dissatisfied that otherwise his equations did not allow for a static universe: gravity would cause a universe that was ...
When studying and formulating Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, various mathematical structures and techniques are utilized. The main tools used in this geometrical theory of gravitation are tensor fields defined on a Lorentzian manifold representing spacetime. This article is a general description of the mathematics of general ...