General relativity
Teoría de la relatividad general
- Date
- 1915 · confidence high
- Place
- Prussian Academy of Sciences, Berlin, Germany
- Credited to
- Albert Einstein; David Hilbert
- People
- 👤 Albert Einstein1879–1955👤 David Hilbert1862–1943
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Gravity is not a force but the curvature of space-time produced by mass and energy, described by the field equations presented on 25 November 1915. It explains the perihelion of Mercury and predicts the bending of light, black holes and gravitational waves.
Hilbert presented equivalent equations in Göttingen on 20 November 1915; current consensus recognises Einstein's priority on the final equations.
What it led to
- Modern cosmology (expansion of the universe, Big Bang)
- Black holes and gravitational waves
- Gravitational lensing
- GPS correction
- Search for quantum gravity
Built on
- Special relativity1905
- Minkowski spacetime1908
- Eötvös experiment (equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass)1889-1909
- Equivalence principle (1907)
- Riemannian geometry and the tensor calculus of Ricci and Levi-Civita
- Marcel Grossmann's mathematical assistance
Made possible
- Cosmological constant1917
- Noether's theorem1918
- Confirmation of light bending by the Sun (1919 eclipse)1919
- Friedmann equations1922
- Quantum foam1955
- Kerr metric1963
- Cosmic censorship hypothesis1969
- Global Positioning System (GPS)1978-1995
- Direct detection of gravitational waves (GW150914)2015 (anunciado en 2016)
- Gravitational-wave astronomy