About space and time: Part 3 of 3 Gravity and space-time

[video]https://youtu.be/NAXHHBUY9_E[/video]

The idea of curved space-time is so abstract that it’s hard to describe in a single video. A number of different approaches exist, so it’s worth finding some more. The explanations can seem quite different; none of them (including ours) can be perfect representations of the underlying mathematics. Here’s another one that we like.

Experimental checks of Einstein’s theories were critical to their acceptance. Two early successes were that:

1. Einstein’s theory overcame a long-standing difficulty with understanding the orbit of Mercury and
2. his theory predicted precisely how light would be deflected by massive objects, which was later confirmed.

More information can be found on this wikipedia page.

These days, we continue to put Einstein’s ideas to the test. We discussed attempts to find gravitational waves in the animation. But there are other tests too of exactly how gravity operates. For instance Gravity Probe B successfully verified a subtle consequence of the Earth’s spin on space-time, an effect known as ‘frame dragging’.

The next spacecraft to pitch Einstein against the real Universe is known as LISA Pathfinder.