Newton’s idea worked when gravity is not especially strong on all scales, such as near the sun or maybe a black hole. So Einstein’s theory was a different way of describing gravity. And that was because that massive object had contorted the shape of the space.Įinstein also showed that the way mass alters space makes bodies move as if they were pulling upon each other, just as Newton had described. So a spaceship - or even a ray of light - would move on a curved line through space as it neared a massive object. It changed notably in the neighborhood of very massive objects, such as a planet, the sun or a Later, Einstein would realize that space, too, was not always constant.
Black holes are so massive that nothing can escape their gravitational clutches. It’s seen here pulling in matter from a nearby blue star. That clock-slowing is part of what Einstein called his special theory of relativity.Īn artist’s drawing of a black hole named Cygnus X-1. If you were traveling at high speed in a spaceship, any clocks onboard or even your pulse rate would slow down compared with your friends back home on Earth. It slows down if you are moving very fast. And Einstein had a better idea about gravity.Įarlier, Einstein had discovered that time does not always flow at the same rate. Space and time were not unvarying, as Newton had described them. He grew up to show that Newton was wrong. Albert Einstein was born 192 years later. Apples fell from trees to the ground because of the Earth’s strong pull.Īll of those ideas came from the mind of Isaac Newton, who wrote about them in a famous 1687 book. And gravity pulled massive objects toward each other. Together, those new papers would outline what would be his general theory of relativity.īefore Einstein came along, scientists believed that space always stayed the same.
That’s when this physicist shared the first of four new papers with the Prussian Academy in Berlin, Germany. Some of his final brush strokes emerged on Novema century ago today. While still a relatively young scientist, Albert Einstein painted a new picture of the universe.
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