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General relativity is a theory of gravitation developed by Einstein in the years 1907–1915. The development of general relativity began with the equivalence principle , under which the states of accelerated motion and being at rest in a gravitational field (for example, when standing on the surface of the Earth) are physically identical.
Elwin Bruno Christoffel (German: [kʁɪˈstɔfl̩]; 10 November 1829 – 15 March 1900) was a German mathematician and physicist.He introduced fundamental concepts of differential geometry, opening the way for the development of tensor calculus, which would later provide the mathematical basis for general relativity.
The Christoffel symbols find frequent use in Einstein's theory of general relativity, where spacetime is represented by a curved 4-dimensional Lorentz manifold with a Levi-Civita connection. The Einstein field equations – which determine the geometry of spacetime in the presence of matter – contain the Ricci tensor .
1. First postulate (principle of relativity) The laws of physics take the same form in all inertial frames of reference.. 2. Second postulate (invariance of c) . As measured in any inertial frame of reference, light is always propagated in empty space with a definite velocity c that is independent of the state of motion of the emitting body.
where = + is the Riemann curvature tensor and is the Christoffel symbol. Because it is a sum of squares of tensor components, this is a quadratic invariant. Einstein summation convention with raised and lowered indices is used above and throughout the article.
In physics, the special theory of relativity, or special relativity for short, is a scientific theory of the relationship between space and time. In Albert Einstein 's 1905 paper, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies , the theory is presented as being based on just two postulates : [ p 1 ] [ 1 ] [ 2 ]
The history of special relativity consists of many theoretical results and empirical findings obtained by Albert A. Michelson, Hendrik Lorentz, Henri Poincaré and others. It culminated in the theory of special relativity proposed by Albert Einstein and subsequent work of Max Planck, Hermann Minkowski and others.
For example, if the general theory of relativity is confirmed by the perihelion of Mercury then, according to total holism, the conjunction of the general theory of relativity with the claim that the moon is made of cheese also gets confirmed. More controversially, the two conjuncts are meant to be confirmed in equal measure.