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In general relativity, gravity can be regarded as not a force but a consequence of a curved spacetime geometry where the source of curvature is the stress–energy tensor (representing matter, for instance). Thus, for example, the path of a planet orbiting around a star is the projection of a geodesic of the curved 4-dimensional spacetime ...
General relativity, also known as the general theory of relativity, and as Einstein's theory of gravity, is the geometric theory of gravitation published by Albert Einstein in 1915 and is the current description of gravitation in modern physics. General relativity generalizes special relativity and refines Newton's law of universal gravitation ...
In contrast to all other modern theories of fundamental interactions, general relativity is a classical theory: it does not include the effects of quantum physics. The quest for a quantum version of general relativity addresses one of the most fundamental open questions in physics.
Numerical relativity is the sub-field of general relativity which seeks to solve Einstein's equations through the use of numerical methods. Finite difference , finite element and pseudo-spectral methods are used to approximate the solution to the partial differential equations which arise.
Its mathematics seemed difficult and fully understandable only by a small number of people. Around 1960, general relativity became central to physics and astronomy. New mathematical techniques to apply to general relativity streamlined calculations and made its concepts more easily visualized.
In physics, a unified field theory (UFT) is a type of field theory that allows all fundamental forces and elementary particles to be written in terms of a single type of field. According to modern discoveries in physics, forces are not transmitted directly between interacting objects but instead are described and interpreted by intermediary ...
These two theories upon which all modern physics rests are general relativity and quantum mechanics. General relativity is a theoretical framework that only focuses on gravity for understanding the universe in regions of both large scale and high mass: planets, stars, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, etc.
In general relativity, the metric tensor (in this context often abbreviated to simply the metric) is the fundamental object of study.The metric captures all the geometric and causal structure of spacetime, being used to define notions such as time, distance, volume, curvature, angle, and separation of the future and the past.