Special and General Relativity
Einstein first started with his papers on Special Relativity. He then made another paper on General Relativity to support his previous paper of Special Relativity. The development of general relativity brought about a radical change in our concepts of space and time.
All observers are equivalent to those in
a uniform gravitational field.
a uniform gravitational field.
Special Relativity is an extremely elegant construct that deals with things moving near or at the speed of light. The Laws of Physics are identical, without any variation. It is impossible to ever transmit information faster than the speed of light. Surprisingly, the new concept of space and time that arises from Relativity is based only on two simple postulates: 1) The laws of physics are the same in all inertial (non-accelerating) reference frames, and 2) The speed of light in free space is constant.
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General Relativity is based on is surprisingly simple. It states that all physical laws can be formulated so as to be valid for any observer, regardless of the observer's motion. Consequently, due to the equivalence of acceleration and gravitation, in an accelerated reference frame, observations are equivalent to those in a uniform gravitational field.
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