general theory of relativity Essay

Submitted By jdat8
Words: 863
Pages: 4

Justin James Dattilo
ENGL 101H/0101/M W F 10 a.m.
Associate Professor Mignon H. Anderson
Due Date: 10/04/2013
Word Count: 780

Hawking Essay Space, time, galaxies, and planets; these are all topics that intrigue many people, but yet most of the population know so little about. These topics very well may never completely be under stood by human life, but famous scientists such as Einstein and Planck really dive deep into their background and study the physics behind them. Extremely deep theories that scientists such as Hawking have been trying to piece together to better understand are the general theory of relativity, the theory of quantum mechanics, and the quantum theory of gravity. For many years the extremely well known scientist, Albert Einstein put forth the work to develop the general theory of relativity. As stated in Hawking’s book, “This theory put an end to the idea of absolute time, and seemed to offer the possibility that we could create and maintain wormholes.” (Hawking P.10) There are two very distinct, but yet very similar parts of this theory; the general theory and the special theory. The general theory was Einstein’s effort to remove the restriction on special relativity that absolutely no forces be present. He did this in hope that he could provide his own ideas of gravitational force. All in all this idea is technically a new theory of gravitation proposed in place of Newtonian Gravitation. In comparison to the general theory the special theory is also valid when no forces act, but it is also valid for systems that are not accelerating. In Albert Einstein’s book the theory of special relativity, he explains it as how to interpret motion between different inertial frames of reference. (Harrison) It is said that, “at speeds that of light space itself becomes contracted and slows.” (Jones) The most famous example of this theory is the relationship between mass and energy known as E=mc^2. This equation basically states that as an object approaches the speed of light the mass of the object increases. This theory has so many topics imbedded throughout it, but these are just a few of the key points on the general theory of relativity. The theory of quantum mechanics is but yet another one of the theories talked about in Stephen Hawking’s book, A Brief History of Time. The birth of this amazing subject was Max Planck’s 1900 paper on blackbody radiation. Quantum mechanics also known as quantum physics it is a branch of physics that deals with physical phenomena’s at extremely small microscopic scales where actions are in order of the Planck constant. Quantum Mechanics provides a mathematical description of the wave like behaviors between interactions of energy and matter. It is also the study of the behavior of matter and energy at the molecular, nuclear, and even much smaller atomic levels. These first two topics the theories of relativity and quantum mechanics have both been studied by Hawking and other physicists and have been proven to exist. While on the contrary the quantum theory of gravity’s existence has yet to be proven by any scientist. This third theory; when proven will combined with the first two and help explain the origins and workings of the whole universe. Quantum gravity is a field of theoretical physics that tries to describe the force of gravity within the principles and ideas of quantum mechanics. This theory is also needed in order to reconcile general relativity with quantum mechanics trying to