If you place the bowling ball on top of the mattress, it will curve the fabric around itself. How Does the Theory of General Relativity Come Into Play?Įinstein later proposed the Theory of General Relativity in 1916 to explain how gravity and mass affect the spacetime continuum. Imagine spacetime as a mattress and a planet as a bowling ball. So if an object approached the speed of light, its mass would eventually become infinite – along with the energy required to move it any further! This formula simply means that objects gain more mass the faster they move. This is the mass-energy equivalence formula, where “E” stands for “energy”, “m” represents “mass”, and “c2” symbolizes the “speed of light squared”. You’ve likely encountered “E = mc2″– or “energy equals mass times the speed of light squared” – at some point in your life. The two big takeaways from this paper (#1 the laws of physics are consistent across all frames of reference without acceleration, and #2 the speed of light is constant in a vacuum for all observers) form the basis of Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity.
He first introduced the concept in his 1905 paper “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”. You exist within the spacetime continuum, alongside the stars in the sky, the planets in our solar system, and whichever device you’re using to read this article!Īs we previously mentioned, Albert Einstein coined the term spacetime. What you’ve just envisioned is the “spacetime continuum” in a nutshell! This map accounts for everything and everyone in our universe across every point in time that it exists. Think of a gigantic map without any breaks, gaps, or blank spaces. “Continuum” is a fancy word that refers to something that goes on forever and only experiences gradual changes along the way. So, you’d probably say something like this “let’s meet up tomorrow at 10:00 AM at Johnson’s Park.” This simple request is an example of spacetime at play! You can’t occupy a certain space in our universe without also occupying a specific time – hence spacetime! Planning to “meet up tomorrow” isn’t enough – you’d need to specify when and where you wish to meet.
To do so, you’ll need to define a specific location and a specific time to rendezvous. Let’s say you want to meet up with a friend. Sounds complicated, right? Let’s apply this information to a practical scenario.
You can locate anything and anyone within spacetime using four coordinates the three dimensions of space (width, breadth, and length) and time. Albert Einstein coined the term when he proposed the theory of relativity in the early 1900s. “Spacetime” is merely a way of viewing space and time as interwoven concepts – two parts of the same whole.
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