Newtonian Motivations For General Relativity - The Equivalence of Gravitational and Inertial Mass

The Equivalence of Gravitational and Inertial Mass

A unique feature of the gravitational force is that all massive objects accelerate in the same manner in a gravitational field. This is often expressed as "The gravitational mass is equal to the inertial mass." This allows us to think of gravity as a curvature of spacetime. Objects move in spacetime along geodesics, the paths which yield the shortest distance between two points in spacetime.

Read more about this topic:  Newtonian Motivations For General Relativity

Famous quotes containing the word mass:

    Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.
    Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979)