Introduction To Special Relativity - General Relativity: A Peek Forward

General Relativity: A Peek Forward

Unlike Newton's laws of motion, relativity is not based upon dynamical postulates. It does not assume anything about motion or forces. Rather, it deals with the fundamental nature of spacetime. It is concerned with describing the geometry of the backdrop on which all dynamical phenomena take place. In a sense therefore, it is a meta-theory, a theory that lays out a structure that all other theories must follow. In truth, special relativity is only a special case. It assumes that spacetime is flat. That is, it assumes that the structure of Minkowski space and the Minkowski metric tensor is constant throughout. In general relativity, Einstein showed that this is not true. The structure of spacetime is modified by the presence of matter. Specifically, the distance formula given above is no longer generally valid except in space free from mass. However, just like a curved surface can be considered flat in the infinitesimal limit of calculus, a curved spacetime can be considered flat at a small scale. This means that the Minkowski metric written in the differential form is generally valid.

One says that the Minkowski metric is valid locally, but it fails to give a measure of distance over extended distances. It is not valid globally. In fact, in general relativity the global metric itself becomes dependent on the mass distribution and varies through space. The central problem of general relativity is to solve the famous Einstein field equations for a given mass distribution and find the distance formula that applies in that particular case. Minkowski's spacetime formulation was the conceptual stepping stone to general relativity. His fundamentally new outlook allowed not only the development of general relativity, but also to some extent quantum field theories.