Related papers: Why Einstein (Had I been born in 1844!)?
By using an unmodified Einstein gravity theory it is shown that all of the speeding-up effects taking place in the current universe are entirely due to the quantum effects associated with the background radiation or to the combination of…
The two defining features of the Einsteinian gravity are that it is self interactive as well as it links universally to all particles including zero mass particles. In the process of obtaining the Schwarzshild solution for gravitational…
It is said that Einstein's conceptual base for the theory of relativity was the philosophy formulated by Immanuel Kant. Then, is it possible to see how Kant played a role in Einstein's thinking without reading Kant's books? This question…
The Finnish physicist Gunnar Nordstr\"om developed a competing theory of gravitation to Einstein's 1912-1913 gravitation theory. The equivalence principle was valid in his theory and it also satisfied red shift of the spectral lines from…
The existence of gravitational radiation is a natural prediction of any relativistic description of the gravitational interaction. In this chapter, we focus on gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity.…
The renaissance of General Relativity witnessed considerable progress regarding both understanding and justifying Einstein's equations. Both general relativists and historians of the subject tend to share a view, General Relativity…
Statements about relativistic effects are often subtle. In this essay we will demonstrate that the three classical tests of general relativity, namely perihelion precession, deflection of light and gravitational redshift, are passed…
In December 1911, Max Abraham published a paper on gravitation at the basis of which was Albert Einstein's 1911 June conclusion about a relationship between the velocity of light and the gravitational potential. In February 1912, Einstein…
We recount the successful long career of classical physics, from Newton to Einstein, which was based on the philosophy of scientific realism. Special emphasis is given to the changing status and number of ontological entitities and…
This article is an attempt for a new vision of the basics of Physics, and of Relativity, in particular. A new generalized principle of inertia is proposed, as an universal principle, based on universality of the conservation laws, not…
A fascinating and deep question about nature is what one would see if one could probe space and time at smaller and smaller distances. Already the 19th-century founders of modern geometry contemplated the possibility that a piece of empty…
The confrontation between General Relativity and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. The agreement between experiment and theory is numerically very impressive. However, some…
We present a historical review of Einstein's 1917 paper 'Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity' to mark the centenary of a key work that set the foundations of modern cosmology. We find that the paper followed as a…
It is shown that the correct expressions for momentum and kinetic energy of a particle moving at high speed were already implicit in physics going back to Maxwell. The demonstration begins with a thought experiment of Einstein by which he…
Einstein was in many ways like a detective on a mystery trail, though in his case he was on the trail of nature's mysteries and not some murder mystery! And like all good detectives he had a style. It consisted of taking facts that he knew…
Gravitation, according to General Relativity, is an attribute of space-time's geometry and hence not a force in the Newtonian sense. This is a consequence of Einstein's equivalence principle, which so far passed all experimental tests with…
Einstein identified singularities in spacetimes, such as at the Schwarzschild radius, where later relativists only find a coordinate system assigning multiple values to a single spacetime event. These differing judgments derive from…
Before developing his 1915 General Theory of Relativity, Einstein held the "Entwurf" theory. Tullio Levi-Civita from Padua, one of the founders of tensor calculus, objected to a major problematic element in this theory, which reflected its…
Although implicit in the discovery of the Schwarzschild solution 40 years earlier, the issues raised by the theory of what are now known as black holes were so unsettling to physicists of Einstein's generation that the subject remained in a…
Albert Einstein's practice in physics and his philosophical positions gradually reoriented themselves from more empiricist towards rationalist viewpoints. This change accompanied his turn towards unified field theory and different…