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Gravitational time dilation is a form of time dilation, an actual difference of elapsed time between two events, as measured by observers situated at varying distances from a gravitating mass. The lower the gravitational potential (the closer the clock is to the source of gravitation), the slower time passes, speeding up as the gravitational ...
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.
Special relativity introduced a new framework for all of physics by proposing new concepts of space and time. Some then-accepted physical theories were inconsistent with that framework; a key example was Newton's theory of gravity, which describes the mutual attraction experienced by bodies due to their mass.
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. In general relativity, the metric tensor plays the role of the gravitational potential in the classical theory of gravitation, although the physical ...
[3] [4] [5] It introduced concepts including 4-dimensional spacetime as a unified entity of space and time, relativity of simultaneity, kinematic and gravitational time dilation, and length contraction. In the field of physics, relativity improved the science of elementary particles and their fundamental interactions, along with ushering in the ...
In physics, spacetime, also called the space-time continuum, is a mathematical model that fuses the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional continuum. Spacetime diagrams are useful in visualizing and understanding relativistic effects, such as how different observers perceive where and when events ...
is the time between two events as measured in the moving reference frame in which they occur at the same place (e.g. two ticks on a moving clock); it is called the proper time between the two events; t is the time between these same two events, but as measured in the stationary reference frame;
where c is the speed of light, and Δr and Δt denote differences of the space and time coordinates, respectively, between the events. The choice of signs for s 2 above follows the space-like convention (−+++). A notation like Δr 2 means (Δr) 2. The reason s 2 and not s is called the interval is that s 2 can be positive, zero or negative.