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The equivalence principle is the hypothesis that the observed equivalence of gravitational and inertial mass is a consequence of nature. The weak form, known for centuries, relates to masses of any composition in free fall taking the same trajectories and landing at identical times.
A stronger version of the equivalence principle, known as the Einstein equivalence principle or the strong equivalence principle, lies at the heart of the general theory of relativity. Einstein's equivalence principle states that within sufficiently small regions of spacetime, it is impossible to distinguish between a uniform acceleration and a ...
The basic premise behind these experiments is now known as the (weak) equivalence principle. Galileo's hypothesis that inertial mass (resistance to acceleration) equals gravitational mass (weight) was extended by Albert Einstein to include special relativity and that combination became a key concept leading to the development of the modern ...
The weak equivalence principle plays a prominent role in relativity theory and the Eötvös experiment was cited by Albert Einstein in his 1916 paper The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity. Measurements of the gravitational gradient are important in applied geophysics, such as the location of petroleum deposits.
Weak equivalence principle This page was last edited on 27 May 2024, at 02:43 (UTC). Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution ...
According to Newton's law of gravity, and independently verified by experiments such as that of Eötvös and its successors (see Eötvös experiment), there is a universality of free fall (also known as the weak equivalence principle, or the universal equality of inertial and passive-gravitational mass): the trajectory of a test body in free ...
1968 – Kenneth Nordtvedt studies a possible violation of the weak equivalence principle for self-gravitating bodies and proposes a new test of the weak equivalence principle based on observing the relative motion of the Earth and Moon in the Sun's gravitational field. [162] 1969 – William B. Bonnor introduces the Bonnor beam. [163]
Gravitational redshift can be interpreted as a consequence of the equivalence principle (that gravitational effects are locally equivalent to inertial effects and the redshift is caused by the Doppler effect) [5] or as a consequence of the mass–energy equivalence and conservation of energy ('falling' photons gain energy), [6] [7] though there ...