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In classical mechanics, a gravitational field is a physical quantity. [5] A gravitational field can be defined using Newton's law of universal gravitation.Determined in this way, the gravitational field g around a single particle of mass M is a vector field consisting at every point of a vector pointing directly towards the particle.
Diagram of gravitational lensing by a compact body. In the limit as the particle mass m goes to zero (or, equivalently if the light is heading directly toward the central mass, as the length-scale a goes to infinity), the equation for the orbit becomes
The two-body problem in general relativity (or relativistic two-body problem) is the determination of the motion and gravitational field of two bodies as described by the field equations of general relativity. Solving the Kepler problem is essential to calculate the bending of light by gravity and the motion of a planet orbiting its sun
It is an attribute of matter, radiation, and non-gravitational force fields. The stress–energy tensor is the source of the gravitational field in the Einstein field equations of general relativity, just as mass density is the source of such a field in Newtonian gravity. Because this tensor has 2 indices (see next section) the Riemann ...
The speed of gravitational waves in the general theory of relativity is equal to the speed of light in vacuum, c. [3] Within the theory of special relativity, the constant c is not only about light; instead it is the highest possible speed for any interaction in nature.
Einstein predicted the gravitational redshift of light from the equivalence principle in 1907, and it was predicted that this effect might be measured in the spectral lines of a white dwarf star, which has a very high gravitational field. Initial attempts to measure the gravitational redshift of the spectrum of Sirius-B, were done by Walter ...
In a similar way, Einstein predicted the gravitational deflection of light: in a gravitational field, light is deflected downward, to the center of the gravitational field. Quantitatively, his results were off by a factor of two; the correct derivation requires a more complete formulation of the theory of general relativity, not just the ...
James Clerk Maxwell's 1865 prediction [46] that light was an electromagnetic wave – which was confirmed experimentally in 1888 by Heinrich Hertz's detection of radio waves [47] – seemed to be the final blow to particle models of light. In 1900, Maxwell's theoretical model of light as oscillating electric and magnetic fields seemed complete.