General and special theory of relativity. Special theory of relativity

The special theory of relativity (STR) or partial theory of relativity is a theory of Albert Einstein, published in 1905 in the work “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies” (Albert Einstein - Zur Elektrodynamik bewegter Körper. Annalen der Physik, IV. Folge 17. Seite 891-921 Juni 1905).

It explained the motion between different inertial frames of reference or the motion of bodies moving in relation to each other with constant speed. In this case, none of the objects should be taken as a reference system, but they should be considered relative to each other. SRT provides only 1 case when 2 bodies do not change the direction of movement and move uniformly.

The laws of SRT cease to apply when one of the bodies changes its trajectory or increases its speed. Here the general theory of relativity (GTR) takes place, giving a general interpretation of the movement of objects.

Two postulates on which the theory of relativity is based:

1. The principle of relativity- According to him, in all existing reference systems, which move in relation to each other at a constant speed and do not change direction, the same laws apply.
2. The Speed ​​of Light Principle- The speed of light is the same for all observers and does not depend on the speed of their movement. This is the highest speed, and nothing in nature has greater speed. The speed of light is 3*10^8 m/s.

Albert Einstein used experimental rather than theoretical data as a basis. This was one of the components of his success. New experimental data served as the basis for the creation of a new theory.

Since the mid-19th century, physicists have been searching for a new mysterious medium called the ether. It was believed that the ether can pass through all objects, but does not participate in their movement. According to beliefs about the aether, by changing the speed of the viewer in relation to the aether, the speed of light also changes.

Einstein, trusting experiments, rejected the concept of a new ether medium and assumed that the speed of light is always constant and does not depend on any circumstances, such as the speed of a person himself.

Time intervals, distances, and their uniformity

The special theory of relativity links time and space. In the Material Universe there are 3 known in space: right and left, forward and backward, up and down. If we add to them another dimension, called time, this will form the basis of the space-time continuum.

If you are moving at a slow speed, your observations will not converge with people who are moving faster.

Later experiments confirmed that space, like time, cannot be perceived in the same way: our perception depends on the speed of movement of objects.

Connecting energy with mass

Einstein came up with a formula that combined energy with mass. This formula is widely used in physics, and it is familiar to every student: E=m*c², wherein E-energy; m - body mass, c - speed propagation of light.

The mass of a body increases in proportion to the increase in the speed of light. If you reach the speed of light, the mass and energy of a body become dimensionless.

By increasing the mass of an object, it becomes more difficult to achieve an increase in its speed, i.e., for a body with an infinitely huge material mass, infinite energy is required. But in reality this is impossible to achieve.

Einstein's theory combined two separate provisions: the position of mass and the position of energy into one general law. This made it possible to convert energy into material mass and vice versa.

Newton's work is an example of a major scientific revolution, a radical change in almost all scientific ideas in natural science. From the time of Newton, the paradigm of classical physics arose and became the main and defining system of views in science for almost 250 years.

Newton's followers began to meaningfully refine the constants he discovered. Gradually, scientific schools began to form, methods of observation and analysis, and classification of various natural phenomena were established. Instruments and scientific equipment began to be produced in a factory manner. Periodicals began to be published in many branches of natural science. Science has become the most important branch of human activity.

So, Newtonian mechanics and cosmology established themselves as the basis of a new worldview, replacing the teaching of Aristotle and medieval scholastic constructions that had dominated for more than a thousand years.

However, by the end of the 19th century, facts began to appear that contradicted the dominant paradigm. And the main inconsistencies were again observed in physics, the most dynamically developing science at that time.

A classic example of this situation is the statement of Lord Kelvin (William Thomson), who at the very end of the 19th century noted that “in the clear and shining sky of classical physics of those years there were only two small clouds.” One of them is associated with the negative result of Michelson’s experiment to determine the absolute speed of the Earth, the other is with the contradiction between theoretical and experimental data on the distribution of energy in the spectrum of an absolute black body.

Kelvin showed extraordinary insight. These unresolved problems led to the emergence of both Einstein's theory of relativity and quantum theory, which formed the basis of a new natural science paradigm.

It can also be noted that the use of classical Newtonian physics did not allow the orbit of Mercury to be accurately calculated, and Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics did not correspond to the classical laws of motion.

The prerequisite for the creation of the theory of relativity was precisely the already mentioned contradictions. Their resolution became possible with the introduction of a new relativistic approach into natural science.

What is usually not clearly understood is the fact that the general desire for a relative (or relativistic) approach to physical laws began to appear at a very early stage in the development of modern science. Beginning with Aristotle, scientists considered the Earth to be the central point of space, and the initial moment of time was taken to be the initial push that set the primordial matter in motion. Aristotle's ideas were accepted as an absolute in the medieval consciousness, but by the end of the 15th century they had already come into conflict with observed natural phenomena. Especially many inconsistencies have accumulated in astronomy.

The first serious attempt to resolve the contradictions was made by Copernicus, simply by accepting that the planets move around the Sun, and not around the Earth. That is, for the first time he removed the Earth from the center of the Universe and deprived space of its starting point. This was, in fact, the beginning of a decisive restructuring of all human thinking. Although Copernicus placed the Sun in this center, he still took a big step towards ensuring that later people realized that even the Sun could only be one of many stars and that no center could be found at all. Then, naturally, a similar thought arose about time, and the Universe began to be seen as infinite and eternal, without any moment of creation and without any “end” towards which it moves.

It is this transition that leads to the origin of the theory of relativity. Since there are no privileged positions in space and privileged moments in time, then physical laws can be equally applied to any point taken as the center, and the same conclusions will follow from them. In this respect, the situation is fundamentally different from that which takes place in Aristotle's theory, where, for example, the center of the Earth was assigned a special role as the point to which all matter tends. The tendency towards relativization was later reflected in the laws of Galileo and Newton

Galileo expressed the idea that motion is relative in nature. That is, the uniform and rectilinear motion of bodies can only be determined relative to an object not participating in such motion.

Let's imagine mentally that one train passes by another at a constant speed and without jolts. Moreover, the curtains are closed and nothing is visible. Can passengers tell which train is moving and which is stationary? They can only observe relative motion. This is the main idea of ​​the classical principle of relativity.

The discovery of the principle of relativity of motion is one of the greatest discoveries. Without him, the development of physics would have been impossible. According to Galileo's hypothesis, inertial motion and rest are indistinguishable in their effects on material bodies. In order to move on to the description of events in a moving reference frame, it was necessary to carry out coordinate transformations, called "Galileo's Transformations", named after their author.

Let's take, for example, some coordinate system X, associated with a fixed reference system. Let us now imagine an object moving along the axis X at constant speed v. Coordinates X " , t" , taken relative to this object, are then determined by the Galilean transformation

x" = x - ut
y" = y
z" = z
t" = t

Particularly noteworthy is the third equation ( t" = t) according to which the clock rate does not depend on relative motion. The same law applies both in the old and in the new frame of reference. This is the limited principle of relativity. We say this because the laws of mechanics are expressed by the same relations in all reference systems interconnected by Galilean transformations.

According to Newton, who developed Galileo’s idea of ​​the relativity of motion, all physical experiments carried out in a laboratory moving uniformly and rectilinearly (an inertial frame of reference) will give the same result as if it were at rest.

As previously mentioned, despite the successes of classical physics of those years, some facts have accumulated that contradict it.

These new data, discovered in the 19th century, led to Einstein's relativistic concept.

The revolution in physics began with Roemer's discovery. It turned out that the speed of light is finite and equal to approximately 300,000 km/sec. Bradry then discovered the phenomenon of stellar aberration. Based on these discoveries, it was established that the speed of light in vacuum is constant and does not depend on the movement of the source and receiver.

The colossal, but still not infinite speed of light in emptiness led to a conflict with the principle of relativity of motion. Let's imagine a train moving at enormous speed - 240,000 kilometers per second. Let us be at the head of the train, and a light bulb comes on at the tail. Let's think about what might be the results of measuring the time it takes light to travel from one end of the train to the other.

This time, it would seem, will be different from the one we get in a train at rest. In fact, relative to a train moving at a speed of 240,000 kilometers per second, light would have a speed (forward along the train) of only 300,000 - 240,000 = 60,000 kilometers per second. The light seems to be catching up with the front wall of the head car running away from it. If you place a light bulb at the head of a train and measure the time it takes for the light to reach the last car, then it would seem that the speed of light in the direction opposite to the movement of the train should be 240,000 + 300,000 = 540,000 kilometers per second (The light and the tail car are moving towards each other each other).

So, it turns out that in a moving train, light would have to spread in different directions at different speeds, while in a stationary train this speed is the same in both directions.

It is for this reason that, under Galilean transformations, Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic field do not have an invariant form. They describe the propagation of light and other types of electromagnetic radiation having speeds equal to the speed of light C. To resolve the contradiction within the framework of classical physics, it was necessary to find a privileged frame of reference in which Maxwell's equations would be exactly satisfied, and the speed of light would be equal to C in all directions . Therefore, physicists of the 19th century postulated the existence of an ether, whose role was actually reduced to creating a physical basis for such a privileged frame of reference.

Experiments were carried out to determine the speed of the Earth's movement through the ether (like the Michelson-Morley experiment). To do this, a beam of light from a source, passing through a prism, was split in the direction of the Earth's movement and perpendicular to it. According to ideas, if the speeds are the same, both beams will arrive at the prism at the same time and the intensity of the light will increase. If the speeds are different, the light intensity will weaken. The result of the experiment was zero; it was impossible to determine the speed of the Earth relative to the ether.

When the experiments did not confirm the predictions of the simple theory of the ether about the properties of this reference system, H. Lorentz, again with the goal of saving classical physics, proposed a new theory that explained the negative results of such experiments as a consequence of changes occurring in measuring instruments when they move relative to the ether. He explained the discrepancy between the observation results and Newton's laws by changes that occur with instruments when moving at speeds close to C.

Lorentz suggested that when moving at speeds close to the speed of light, Galilean transformations cannot be used, since they do not take into account the effect of high speeds. His transformations, for speeds close to the speed of light, are called “Lorentz transformations”. Galilean transformations are a special case of Lorentz transformations for systems with low speeds.

Lorentz transformations have the form:

In accordance with Lorentz transformations, physical quantities - the mass of a body, its length in the direction of movement and time depend on the speeds of movement of bodies according to the following relationships:

	Where M- body mass	The meaning of these Lorentz transformations says: increase in body weight at speeds close to light reduction in body length when moving in a direction coinciding with the velocity vector increasing the time between two events, or slowing down time
	Where L- body length
	Where ∆t – time interval between two events

Trying to find the physical meaning of the patterns discovered by Lorentz, we can assume that in the x direction, coinciding with the velocity vector, all bodies are compressed, and the stronger the higher the speed of their movement. That is, bodies experience contraction due to flattening of electron orbits. When sublight speeds are reached, we can talk about time dilation in a moving system. The well-known twin paradox is based on this principle. If one of the twins goes on a space journey for a period of five years on a ship at sub-light speed, then he will return to earth when his twin brother is already a very old person. The effect of increasing mass on an object moving at speeds close to the speed of light can be explained by the increase in kinetic energy of a fast-moving body. In accordance with Einstein's ideas about the identity of mass and energy, part of the kinetic energy of a body is converted into its mass during movement.

If we apply Lorentz transformations to Maxwell's equations of electrodynamics, it turns out that they are invariant under such transformations.

Einstein used Lorentz transformations to develop his theory of relativity.

An important prerequisite for the creation of the theory of relativity was new ideas about the properties of space and time.

In ordinary consciousness, time consists of an objectively existing natural coordination of successive phenomena. Spatial characteristics are the positions of some bodies relative to others and the distances between them.

In Newton's theoretical system, the first scientific concept of time as an objective, independent entity was clearly formulated - the substantial concept of time. This concept originates from the ancient atomists and flourishes in Newton's doctrine of absolute space and time. After Newton, it was this concept that was leading in physics until the beginning of the twentieth century. Newton took a dual approach to defining time and space. According to this approach, there is both absolute and relative time.

Absolute, true and mathematical time in itself, without any relation to anything external, flows uniformly and is called duration.

Relative, apparent or ordinary time is a measure of duration used in everyday life instead of mathematical time - this is an hour, month, year, etc.

Absolute time cannot be changed in its flow.

At the everyday level, a system for counting long periods of time is possible. If it provides for the order of counting days in a year and the era is indicated in it, then it is a calendar.

The relational concept of time is as ancient as the substantial concept. It was developed in the works of Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle was the first to give a detailed idea of ​​this concept of time in his Physics. In this concept, time is not something independently existing, but is something derived from a more fundamental entity. For Plato, time was created by God, for Aristotle it is the result of objective material movement. In the philosophy of modern times, starting with Descartes and ending with the positivists of the 19th century, time is a property or relationship that expresses various aspects of the activity of human consciousness.

The problem of space, upon closer examination, also turns out to be difficult. Space is a logically conceivable form that serves as a medium in which other forms and certain structures exist. For example, in elementary geometry, a plane is a space that serves as a medium where various but flat figures are constructed.

In Newton's classical mechanics, absolute space, by its very essence, regardless of anything external, always remains the same and motionless. It acts as an analogue of the emptiness of Democritus and is the arena of the dynamics of physical objects.

Aristotle's idea of ​​isotropic space departed from the homogeneity and infinity of Democritus' space. According to Aristotle and his followers, space acquired a center - the Earth, with spheres revolving around it, with the most distant celestial sphere of stars serving as the boundary of the final world space. Aristotle rejects the infinity of space, but adheres to the concept of infinite time. This concept is expressed in his idea of ​​the spherical space of the Universe, which, although limited, is not finite.

Classical Newtonian space is based on the idea of ​​its homogeneity. This is the basic idea of ​​classical physics, consistently developed in the works of Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo and Descartes. Bruno already abandoned the idea of ​​the center of the Universe and declared it infinite and homogeneous. This idea reached its completion with Newton. In a homogeneous space, the idea of ​​absolute motion changes, that is, the body in it moves due to inertia. Inertial forces do not arise in the absence of acceleration. The meaning of rectilinear and uniform motion comes down to a change in the distance between a given body and an arbitrarily chosen body of reference. Rectilinear and uniform motion is relative.

Historically, the first and most important mathematical space is flat Euclidean space, which represents an abstract image of real space. The properties of this space are described using 5 main postulates and 9 axioms. There was a weak point in Euclid's geometry, the so-called fifth postulate about non-intersecting parallel lines. Mathematicians of ancient and modern times tried unsuccessfully to prove this position. In the 18th - 19th centuries, D. Saccheri, Lambert and A. Legendre tried to solve this problem. Unsuccessful attempts to prove the 5th postulate brought great benefits. Mathematicians took the path of modifying the concepts of the geometry of Euclidean space. The most serious modification was introduced in the first half of the 19th century by N. I. Lobachevsky (1792 - 1856).

He came to the conclusion that instead of the axiom of two parallel lines, one can put forward a directly opposite hypothesis and, on its basis, create a consistent geometry. In this new geometry, some statements looked strange and even paradoxical. For example, the Euclidean axiom says: in a plane, through a point not lying on a given line, one and only one line can be drawn parallel to the first. In Lobachevsky's geometry this axiom is replaced by the following: in a plane, through a point not lying on a given line, more than one straight line can be drawn that does not intersect the given one. In this geometry, the sum of the angles of a triangle is less than two straight lines, etc. But, despite the external paradox, logically these statements are completely equal to Euclidean ones. They radically changed ideas about the nature of space. Almost simultaneously with Lobachevsky, the Hungarian mathematician J. Bolyai and the famous mathematician K. Gauss came to similar conclusions. Contemporaries of scientists were skeptical about non-Euclidean geometry, considering it pure fantasy. However, the Roman mathematician E. Beltrami found a model for non-Euclidean geometry, which is the pseudosphere:

Figure 1. Pseudo-sphere

The next major step in understanding the nature of space was made by B. Riemann (1826 - 1866). Having graduated from the University of Göttingen in 1851, he already in 1854 (28 years old) gave a report “On the hypotheses underlying geometry,” where he gave a general idea of ​​​​mathematical space, in which the geometries of Euclid and Lobachevsky were special cases. In n-dimensional Riemann space, all lines are divided into elementary segments, the state of which is determined by the coefficient g. If the coefficient is 0, then all the lines on this segment are straight - Euclid’s postulates work. In other cases, space will be curved. If the curvature is positive, then the space is called Riemannian spherical. If negative, it is a pseudospherical Lobachevsky space. Thus, by the middle of the 19th century, the place of flat three-dimensional Euclidean space was occupied by multidimensional curved space. The concepts of Riemannian space ultimately served as one of the main prerequisites for Einstein's creation of the general theory of relativity.

Fig 2 Riemannian spherical space

The final preparation of the spatial-geometric background of the theory of relativity was given by Einstein’s immediate teacher G. Minkowski (1864 - 1909), who formulated the idea of four-dimensional space-time continuum, unifying physical three-dimensional space and time. He was actively involved in the electrodynamics of moving media based on electronic theory and the principle of relativity. The equations he obtained, later called the Minkowski equations, are somewhat different from the Lorentz equations, but are consistent with experimental facts. They constitute a mathematical theory of physical processes in four-dimensional space. Minkowski space makes it possible to visually interpret the kinematic effects of the special theory of relativity, and underlies the modern mathematical apparatus of the theory of relativity.

This idea of ​​a single space and time, later called spacetime, and its fundamental difference from Newtonian independent space and time, apparently, captured Einstein long before 1905, and is not directly related to either the Michelson experiment or the Lorentz-Poincaré theory.

In 1905, Albert Einstein published an article “On the electrodynamics of moving bodies” in the journal “Annals of Physics” and another small article where the formula was first shown E=mc2. As they later began to say, this is the main formula of our century.

The article on electrodynamics presents a theory that excludes the existence of a privileged coordinate system for rectilinear and uniform motion. Einstein's theory excludes time independent of the spatial reference system and abandons the classical rule of adding velocities. Einstein assumed that the speed of light is constant and represents the speed limit in nature. He called this theory "Special theory of relativity".

Einstein developed his theory on the basis of the following basic postulates:

• the laws according to which the states of physical systems change do not depend on which of the two coordinate systems, moving relative to each other uniformly and rectilinearly, these changes relate to. Consequently, there is no preferred frame of reference for uniform and rectilinear motion - principle of relativity
• Each ray of light moves in a stationary coordinate system with a certain speed, regardless of whether this ray of light is emitted by a stationary or moving source. This speed is the maximum speed of interactions in nature - postulate about the constancy of the speed of light

Two corollaries emerge from these postulates:

• if events in frame 1 occur at one point and are simultaneous, then they are not simultaneous in another inertial frame. This is the principle of the relativity of simultaneity
• for any speeds 1 and 2, their sum cannot be greater than the speed of light. This is the relativistic law of addition of velocities

These postulates - the principle of relativity and the principle of the constancy of the speed of light - are the basis of Einstein's special theory of relativity. From these he obtains the relativity of lengths and the relativity of time.

The essence of Einstein's approach was the rejection of ideas about absolute space and time, on which the ether hypothesis is based. Instead, a relational approach to electromagnetic phenomena and the propagation of electromagnetic radiation was adopted. Newton's laws of motion were expressed by the same relations in all uniformly moving systems interconnected by Galilean transformations, and the law of invariance of the observed value of the speed of light was expressed by the same relation in all uniformly moving systems interconnected by Lorentz transformations.

However, Newton's laws of motion are not invariant under Lorentz transformations. It follows that Newton’s laws cannot be true laws of mechanics (they are only approximate, valid in the limiting case when the ratio v/c tends to zero).

However, the special theory of relativity is also valid for limited conditions - for uniformly moving systems.

Einstein continued the development of the special theory of relativity in his work “The Law of Conservation of Motion of the Center of Gravity and Inertia of a Body.” He took as a basis Maxwell’s conclusion that a light beam has mass, that is, when moving, it exerts pressure on an obstacle. This assumption was experimentally proven by P.N. Lebedev. In his work, Einstein substantiated the relationship between mass and energy. He came to the conclusion that when a body emits energy L, its mass decreases by an amount equal to L / V2. From this a general conclusion was drawn - the mass of a body is a measure of the energy contained in it. If the energy changes by an amount equal to L, then the mass correspondingly changes by an amount L divided by the square of the speed of light. This is how Einstein’s famous relation E = MC2 appears for the first time.

In 1911-1916, Einstein managed to generalize the theory of relativity. The theory, created in 1905, as already mentioned, was called the special theory of relativity, because. it was valid only for rectilinear and uniform motion.

In the general theory of relativity, new aspects of the dependence of space-time relations and material processes were revealed. This theory provided a physical basis for non-Euclidean geometries and connected the curvature of space and the deviation of its metric from the Euclidean one with the action of gravitational fields created by the masses of bodies.

The general theory of relativity is based on the principle of equivalence of inertial and gravitational masses, the quantitative equality of which was long ago established in classical physics. Kinematic effects arising under the influence of gravitational forces are equivalent to the effects arising under the influence of acceleration. So, if a rocket takes off with an acceleration of 3 g, then the rocket crew will feel as if they are in triple the gravity field of the Earth.

Classical mechanics could not explain why inertia and heaviness are measured by the same quantity - mass, why heavy mass is proportional to inertial mass, why, in other words, bodies fall with the same acceleration. On the other hand, classical mechanics, explaining the forces of inertia by accelerated motion in absolute space, believed that this absolute space acts on bodies, but is not affected by them. This led to the identification of inertial systems as special systems in which only the laws of mechanics are observed. Einstein declared the accelerated motion of a system outside a gravitational field and the inertial motion in a gravitational field to be fundamentally indistinguishable. Acceleration and gravity produce physically indistinguishable effects.

This fact was essentially established by Galileo: all bodies move in a gravitational field (in the absence of environmental resistance) with the same acceleration, the trajectories of all bodies with a given speed are equally curved in the gravitational field. Due to this, no experiment can detect a gravitational field in a freely falling elevator. In other words, in a reference frame moving freely in a gravitational field in a small region of space-time, there is no gravity. The last statement is one of the formulations of the principle of equivalence. This principle explains the phenomenon of weightlessness in spacecraft.

If we extend the equivalence principle to optical phenomena, this will lead to a number of important consequences. This is the phenomenon of red shift and deflection of a light beam under the influence of a gravitational field. The redshift effect occurs when light is directed from a point with greater gravitational potential to points with less gravitational potential. That is, in this case its frequency decreases and the wavelength increases and vice versa. For example, sunlight falling on Earth will arrive here with a changed frequency, in which the spectral lines will shift towards the red part of the spectrum.

The conclusion about the change in the frequency of light in the gravitational field is associated with the effect of time dilation near large gravitational masses. Where the shadow fields are larger, the clock runs slower.

Thus, a new fundamental result has been obtained - the speed of light is no longer a constant value, but increases or decreases in the gravitational field, depending on whether the direction of the light beam coincides with the direction of the gravitational field.

The new theory changed Newton's theory little quantitatively, but it introduced profound qualitative changes. Inertia, gravity and the metric behavior of bodies and clocks were reduced to a single property of the field, and the generalized law of inertia took over the role of the law of motion. At the same time, it was shown that space and time are not absolute categories - bodies and their masses influence them and change their metric.

How can one imagine the curvature of space and the dilation of time, which is discussed in the general theory of relativity?

Let's imagine a model of space in the form of a sheet of rubber (even if it is not the entire space, but its plane slice). If we stretch this sheet horizontally and place large balls on it, then they will bend the rubber, the more, the greater the mass of the ball. This clearly demonstrates the dependence of the curvature of space on the mass of a body and also shows how the non-Euclidean geometries of Lobachevsky and Riemann can be depicted.

The theory of relativity established not only the curvature of space under the influence of gravitational fields, but also the slowing down of time in a strong gravitational field. Light traveling along the waves of space takes longer than it does to move along a flat slice of space. One of the most fantastic predictions of the general theory of relativity is the complete stop of time in a very strong gravitational field. Time dilation manifests itself in the gravitational redshift of light: the stronger the gravity, the longer the wavelength and lower the frequency. Under certain conditions, the wavelength can tend to infinity, and its frequency – to zero. Those. the light will disappear.

With the light emitted by our Sun, this could happen if our star were to shrink and turn into a ball with a diameter of 5 km (the diameter of the Sun is » 1.5 million km). The sun would turn into a “black hole”. At first, “black holes” were predicted theoretically. However, in 1993, two astronomers, Hulse and Taylor, were awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of such an object in the Black Hole-Pulsar system. The discovery of this object was another confirmation of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

General relativity was able to explain the discrepancy between the calculated and true orbits of Mercury. In it, the orbits of the planets are not closed, that is, after each revolution the planet returns to a different point in space. The calculated orbit of Mercury gave an error of 43??, that is, the rotation of its perihelion was observed (perihelion is the point of the orbit of the planet orbiting around it closest to the Sun.).

Only the general theory of relativity could explain this effect by the curvature of space under the influence of the gravitational mass of the Sun.

The ideas about space and time formulated in the theory of relativity are the most consistent and consistent. But they rely on the macrocosm, on the experience of studying large objects, large distances, large periods of time. When constructing theories that describe the phenomena of the microworld, Einstein's theory may not be applicable, although there is no experimental data that contradicts its use in the microworld. But it is possible that the very development of quantum concepts will require a revision of the understanding of the physics of space and time.

Currently, the general theory of relativity is a generally accepted theory in the scientific world that describes processes occurring in time and space. But, like any scientific theory, it corresponds to the level of knowledge for a given specific period. With the accumulation of new information and the acquisition of new experimental data, any theory can be refuted.

The general and special theory of relativity (the new theory of space and time) led to the fact that all reference systems became equal, therefore all our ideas make sense only in a certain reference system. The picture of the world acquired a relative, relational character, key ideas about space, time, causality, continuity were modified, the unambiguous opposition of subject and object was rejected, perception turned out to be dependent on the frame of reference, which includes both the subject and the object, the method of observation, etc.)

Based on a new relativistic approach to the perception of nature, a new, third natural science paradigm in the history of science was formulated. It is based on the following ideas:

• Ø Relativism– the new scientific paradigm abandoned the idea of ​​absolute knowledge. All physical laws discovered by scientists are objective at a given time. Science deals with limited and approximate concepts and only strives to comprehend the truth.
• Ø Neodeterminism- nonlinear determinism. The most important aspect of understanding determinism as nonlinear is the rejection of the idea of ​​forced causation, which presupposes the presence of a so-called external cause for ongoing natural processes. Both necessity and chance receive equal rights when analyzing the course of natural processes.
• Ø Global evolutionism– the idea of ​​nature as a constantly developing, dynamic system. Science began to study nature not only from the point of view of its structure, but also the processes occurring in it. At the same time, research into processes in nature is given priority.
• Ø Holism- vision of the world as a single whole. The universal nature of the connection between the elements of this whole (obligatory connection).
• Ø Synergy– as a research method, as a universal principle of self-organization and development of open systems.
• Ø Establishing a reasonable balance between analysis and synthesis when studying nature. The teaching understood that it is impossible to endlessly crush nature into the smallest bricks. Its properties can only be understood through the dynamics of nature as a whole.
• Ø The statement that the evolution of nature takes place in a four-dimensional space-time continuum.

SRT, also known as the special theory of relativity, is a sophisticated descriptive model for the relationships of space-time, motion, and the laws of mechanics, created in 1905 by Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein.

Entering the department of theoretical physics at the University of Munich, Max Planck turned for advice to Professor Philipp von Jolly, who at that time headed the department of mathematics at this university. To which he received advice: “in this area almost everything is already open, and all that remains is to patch up some not very important problems.” Young Planck replied that he did not want to discover new things, but only wanted to understand and systematize already known knowledge. As a result, from one such “not very important problem” quantum theory subsequently emerged, and from another, the theory of relativity, for which Max Planck and Albert Einstein received the Nobel Prize in physics.

Unlike many other theories that relied on physical experiments, Einstein's theory was based almost entirely on his thought experiments and was only later confirmed in practice. So back in 1895 (at the age of only 16 years) he thought about what would happen if he moved parallel to a beam of light at its speed? In such a situation, it turned out that for an outside observer, particles of light should have oscillated around one point, which contradicted Maxwell’s equations and the principle of relativity (which stated that physical laws do not depend on the place where you are and the speed at which you move). Thus, young Einstein came to the conclusion that the speed of light should be unattainable for a material body, and the first brick was laid into the basis of the future theory.

The next experiment was carried out by him in 1905 and consisted in the fact that at the ends of a moving train there are two pulsed light sources that light up at the same time. For an outside observer passing by a train, both of these events occur simultaneously, but for an observer located in the center of the train, these events will seem to have occurred at different times, since the flash of light from the beginning of the car will arrive earlier than from its end (due to constant speed of light).

From this he made a very bold and far-reaching conclusion that the simultaneity of events is relative. He published the calculations obtained on the basis of these experiments in the work “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies.” Moreover, for a moving observer, one of these pulses will have greater energy than the other. In order for the law of conservation of momentum to not be violated in such a situation when moving from one inertial reference system to another, it was necessary that the object simultaneously with the loss of energy should also lose mass. Thus, Einstein came to a formula characterizing the relationship between mass and energy E=mc 2 - which is perhaps the most famous physical formula at the moment. The results of this experiment were published by him later that year.

Basic postulates

Constancy of the speed of light– by 1907, experiments were carried out to measure with an accuracy of ±30 km/s (which was greater than the Earth’s orbital speed) and did not detect its changes during the year. This was the first proof of the invariability of the speed of light, which was subsequently confirmed by many other experiments, both by experimenters on earth and by automatic devices in space.

The principle of relativity– this principle determines the immutability of physical laws at any point in space and in any inertial frame of reference. That is, regardless of whether you are moving at a speed of about 30 km/s in the orbit of the Sun along with the Earth or in a spaceship far beyond its borders - when you perform a physical experiment, you will always come to the same results (if your ship is in this time does not speed up or slow down). This principle was confirmed by all experiments on Earth, and Einstein wisely considered this principle to be true for the rest of the Universe.

Consequences

Through calculations based on these two postulates, Einstein came to the conclusion that time for an observer moving in a ship should slow down with increasing speed, and he, along with the ship, should shrink in size in the direction of movement (in order to thereby compensate for the effects of movement and maintain principle of relativity). From the condition of finite velocity for a material body, it also followed that the rule for adding velocities (which had a simple arithmetic form in Newtonian mechanics) should be replaced by more complex Lorentz transformations - in this case, even if we add two velocities to 99% of the speed of light, we will get 99.995% of this speed, but we will not exceed it.

Status of the theory

Since it took Einstein only 11 years to form a general version from a particular theory, no experiments were carried out to directly confirm SRT. However, in the same year as it was published, Einstein also published his calculations that explained the shift in the perihelion of Mercury to within a fraction of a percent, without the need to introduce new constants and other assumptions that were required by other theories that explained this process. Since then, the correctness of general relativity has been confirmed experimentally with an accuracy of 10 -20, and on its basis many discoveries have been made, which clearly proves the correctness of this theory.

Championship in opening

When Einstein published his first works on the special theory of relativity and began to write its general version, other scientists had already discovered a significant part of the formulas and ideas underlying this theory. So let's say the Lorentz transformations in general form were first obtained by Poincaré in 1900 (5 years before Einstein) and were named after Hendrik Lorentz, who received an approximate version of these transformations, although even in this role he was ahead of Waldemar Vogt.

SPECIAL AND GENERAL RELATIVITY

One of the most important aspects of modern physics that is directly relevant to our analysis of theology is the concept of time - its origin and the absence of a single, or constant and unchangeable, measure of its flow. Because of the importance of chronology in interpreting the Bible, it is very important to try to understand how the theory of relativity interprets our perception of the Universe, its age and everything that happens in it. time relativity quantum photon

It is difficult to name another theory that would have such a profound impact on our understanding of the world and its creation as the theory of relativity (both special and general). Before the appearance of this theory, time was always considered as an absolute category. The time elapsed from the beginning to the completion of a process was considered independent of who measured its duration. Even 300 years ago, Newton formulated this belief very eloquently: “Absolute, true and mathematical time, of itself and by virtue of its nature, flows uniformly and independently of any external factors.” Moreover, time and space were considered as unrelated categories that did not influence each other in any way. And indeed, what other connection could exist between the distance separating two points of space and the passage of time, besides the fact that a greater distance required more time to overcome it; simple and pure logic.

The concepts proposed by Einstein in his special theory of relativity (1905) and later his general theory of relativity (1916) changed our understanding of space and time as fundamentally as the light of a switched-on lamp changes our perception of a previously darkened room.

The long journey to Einstein's insight began in 1628, when Johannes Kepler discovered a curious phenomenon. He noticed that the tails of comets are always directed in the direction opposite to the Sun. The falling stars tracing the night sky have a tail blazing, as it should be, behind them. In the same way, the tail stretches behind a comet when it approaches the Sun. But after the comet passes the Sun and begins its return flight to the distant regions of the solar system, the situation changes in the most dramatic way. The comet's tail is in front of its main body. This picture decisively contradicts the very concept of a tail! Kepler proposed that the position of the comet's tail relative to its main body is determined by the pressure of sunlight. The tail has less density than the comet itself, and therefore is more susceptible to solar radiation pressure than the main body of the comet. The radiation from the sun actually blows on the tail and pushes it away from the sun. If not for the gravitational pull of the comet's main body, the tiny particles that make up the tail would be swept away. Kepler's discovery was the first indication that radiation - such as light - could have a mechanical (in this case repulsive) force. This was a very important change in our understanding of light, for it follows that light, which has always been considered something immaterial, may have weight or mass. But it was only 273 years later, in 1901, that the pressure exerted by a stream of light was measured. E.F. Nichols and J.F. Hull, shining a powerful beam of light onto a mirror suspended in a vacuum, measured the displacement of the mirror as a result of light pressure. This was a laboratory analogy of a comet's tail being pushed away by sunlight.

In 1864, exploring Michael Faraday's discoveries about electricity and magnetism, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation move through space as waves at the same fixed speed7. The microwaves in the microwave oven in our kitchen, the light under which we read, the X-rays that allow a doctor to see a broken bone, and the gamma rays released by an atomic explosion are all electromagnetic waves, differing from each other only in wavelength and frequency. The greater the radiation energy, the shorter the wavelength and the higher the frequency. In all other respects they are identical.

In 1900, Max Planck proposed a theory of electromagnetic radiation that was fundamentally different from all previous ones. Previously, it was believed that the energy emitted by a heated object, such as the red glow of hot metal, was emitted uniformly and continuously. It was also assumed that the radiation process continued until all the heat was completely dissipated and the object returned to its original state - and this was fully confirmed by cooling the heated metal to room temperature. But Planck showed that the situation was completely different. The energy is not emitted in a uniform and continuous stream, but in discrete portions, as if a red-hot metal gave up its heat, spewing out a stream of tiny hot particles.

Planck proposed a theory according to which these particles represent single portions of radiation. He called them “quanta,” and that’s how quantum mechanics was born. Since any radiation moves at the same speed (the speed of light), the speed of movement of the quanta must be the same. And although the speed of all quanta is the same, they do not all have the same energy. Planck proposed that the energy of an individual quantum is proportional to the frequency of its oscillations as it moves through space, like a tiny rubber ball that continually contracts and expands as it flies along its trajectory. In the visible range, our eyes can measure the pulsation frequency of a quantum, and we call this measure color. It is due to the quantized emission of energy that a slightly heated object begins to glow red, then, as the temperature rises, it begins to emit other colors of the spectrum corresponding to higher energies and frequencies. In the end, its radiation turns into a mixture of all frequencies, which we perceive as the white color of a hot body.

And here we run into a paradox - the same theory that describes light as a stream of particles called quanta simultaneously describes the energy of light using frequency (see Fig. 1). But frequency is associated with waves, not particles. In addition, we know that the speed of light is always constant. But what happens if the object emitting light, or the observer detecting that light, moves itself? Will their speed be added to or subtracted from the speed of light? Logic tells us that yes, it should be added or subtracted, but then the speed of light will not be constant! The pressure that light exerts on the comet's tail or on the mirror in the Nichols-Hull experiment means that there is a change in the momentum (also called momentum) of the light as it hits the surface. It is for this reason that any moving object puts pressure on the obstacle. A stream of water from a hose drives a ball along the ground because water has mass and this mass has a speed that turns to zero at the moment the stream hits the ball. In this case, the momentum of the water is transferred to the ball and the ball rolls away. The very definition of momentum (momentum) as the product of the mass (t) or weight of an object and the speed of its movement (v), or mv, requires that moving light have mass. Somehow these wave-like particles of light have mass, even though no material trace is left on the surface upon which the light falls. After the light has “shed” on the surface, there is no “dirt” left on it from which it could be cleaned. Until now, we are still trying to create a unified theory that would fully explain this phenomenon of light and any other radiation.

Simultaneously with the study of the nature of radiant energy, research was carried out related to the propagation of light. It seemed logical that since light and other types of electromagnetic radiation are, in a certain sense, waves, they would need some kind of medium in which these waves could propagate. It was believed that waves could not propagate in a vacuum. Just as sound needed a certain material substance, such as air, to carry its wave-like energy, so light seemed to require some special substance to propagate it. At one time, it was suggested that the Universe should be filled with an invisible and intangible medium, which ensures the transfer of radiation energy through outer space - for example, light and heat from the Sun to the Earth. This medium was called the ether, which was supposed to fill even the vacuum of space.

The postulate about the propagation of light through the ether made it possible to explain the paradox of the constancy of its speed. According to this explanation, light must travel at a constant speed, not relative to the light source or observer, but relative to this omnipresent ether. For an observer moving through the ether, light could travel faster or slower depending on the direction of its movement relative to the direction of the light, but relative to the stationary ether, the speed of light must remain constant.

Rice. 1.

The same is true for sound propagation. Sound travels through still air at sea level at a constant speed of about 300 meters per second, regardless of whether the sound source is moving or not. The explosion-like sound a plane makes as it crosses the sound barrier is actually the result of the plane hitting its own sound wave as it overtakes it, traveling faster than 300 meters per second. In this case, the source of the sound, the airplane, is moving faster than the sound it produces. The dual nature of light is such that if we place a small diameter hole in its path, the light behaves exactly like an ocean wave passing through a narrow harbor entrance. Both the light and the ocean wave, having passed through the hole, spread in circles on the other side of the hole. On the other hand, if light illuminates the surface of some metal, it behaves like a stream of tiny particles bombarding this surface. Light knocks electrons out of the metal one at a time in the same way that small pellets hitting a paper target will tear out scraps of paper from it, one scrap per pellet. The energy of a light wave is determined by its length. The energy of light particles is determined not by their speed, but by the frequency with which particles of light - photons - pulsate as they move at the speed of light.

When scientists discussed the supposed properties of the ether, which had yet to be discovered, no one suspected that the passage of time was connected with the movement of light. But this discovery was just around the corner.

In 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley published the results of their attempt to experimentally observe what followed from the theory of the ether8. They compared the total time it takes light to travel the same distance back and forth in two directions - parallel and perpendicular to the Earth's orbit around the Sun. Since the Earth moves in its orbit around the Sun at a speed of approximately 30 kilometers per second, it was assumed that it moves at the same speed relative to the ether. If light radiation obeys the same laws that govern all other waves, the motion of the Earth relative to the ether should have affected the travel time of light measured in their experiments. This effect should not have been any different from the effect of a strong wind carrying away sound.

To everyone's surprise, Michelson and Morley did not record the slightest trace of the impact of this speed of 30 kilometers per second. The initial experiment, as well as subsequent, technically more advanced versions of the same experiment, led to a completely unexpected conclusion - the movement of the Earth has no effect on the speed of light.

This caused confusion. The speed of light (c) is always 299,792.5 kilometers per second, regardless of whether the light source or observer is moving or stationary. In addition to this, the same beam of light behaves both as a wave and as a particle, depending on the way it is observed. It was as if we were standing on a pier and watching the waves rolling in from the ocean, and suddenly, in the blink of an eye, the usual crests of the waves and the trenches between them would turn into a stream of individual water balls, moving, pulsating, in the air above the very sea ​​level. And the next moment the balls would disappear and the waves would appear again.

In 1905, in the midst of this confusion, Albert Einstein appeared on the scientific scene with his theory of relativity. During that year, Einstein published a series of papers that quite literally changed humanity's understanding of our universe. Five years earlier, Planck had proposed the quantum theory of light. Using Planck's theory, Einstein was able to explain an interesting phenomenon. Light hitting the surface of some metals releases electrons, resulting in an electric current. Einstein postulated that this “photoelectric” effect results from light quanta (photons) literally knocking electrons out of their orbits around the atomic nucleus. It turns out that photons have mass when they are moving (remember that they are moving at the speed of light c), but their “rest mass” is zero. A moving photon has the properties of a particle - at every moment it is at a certain point in space and also has mass, and therefore, as Kepler once suggested, it can act on material objects, for example, the tail of a comet; at the same time, it has the properties of a wave - it is characterized by an oscillation frequency that is proportional to its energy. It turned out that matter and energy are closely connected in the photon. Einstein discovered this connection and formulated it in a widely known equation. Einstein concluded that this equation applies to all types of mass and forms of energy. These provisions became the basis of the special theory of relativity.

The perception of these ideas is not so simple and requires considerable mental effort. For example, let's take a certain object. The mass (what we usually call "weight") of a stationary object is called, in scientific terms, rest mass. Now let's give this object a strong push. It will begin to move at a certain speed and, as a result, will acquire kinetic energy, the greater the higher its speed. But since the e in E=mc2 refers to all forms of energy, the total energy of an object will be the sum of its rest energy (associated with rest mass) and its kinetic energy (the energy of its motion). In other words, Einstein's equation requires that the mass of an object actually increases as its speed increases.

So, according to the theory of relativity, the mass of an object changes as its speed changes. At low speeds, the mass of the object is practically no different from the rest mass. That is why in our daily activities Newton's description of the laws of nature turns out to be quite accurate. But for galaxies speeding through space, or for subatomic particles in an accelerator, the situation is completely different. In both cases, the speed of these objects can be a large fraction of the speed of light, and therefore the change in their masses can be very, very significant.

This interchange between mass and energy is discussed very eloquently by both Steven Weinberg in his book The First Three Minutes and Nachmanides in his commentary on Genesis. They both talk about mass-energy dualism when describing the first minutes of the life of the Universe.

The special theory of relativity is based on two postulates: the principle of relativity and the constancy of the speed of light. The principle of relativity, postulated by Galileo Galilei 300 years ago, was refined by Einstein. This principle states that all the laws of physics (which are nothing more than the laws of nature) act equally in all systems moving without acceleration, that is, uniformly and rectilinearly. In the language of physicists, such systems are called inertial frames of reference.

The reference frame determines the observer's relationship with the outside world. The principle of relativity tells us that, being in an inertial frame of reference, we cannot, using the laws of physics, determine whether the system itself is moving, since its movement does not in any way affect the results of measurements made within the system. This is why we do not feel movement when we fly at a constant speed in calm weather. But, rocking in a rocking chair, we find ourselves in a non-inertial frame of reference; Since the speed and direction of movement of the rocking chair is constantly changing, we can feel our movement.

We have all encountered examples of the impossibility of measuring absolute motion. For example, we are standing in front of a traffic light, and the car in front of us begins to slowly roll backwards. Or are we moving forward? At first it is difficult to understand who exactly is moving. Our train slowly and smoothly begins to move along the platform. Waking up from our slumber, we notice that the train standing on the adjacent track begins to slowly move backwards. Or at least it seems to us that this is the case. Until our frame of reference - our car or train - begins to move with acceleration (ceases to be an inertial frame), it is unclear what is moving and what is at rest.

There may seem to be a contradiction here: Einstein taught us that the mass of an object is a function of its speed, and now we claim that we cannot determine motion by measuring how the mass changes under its influence. But there is a very subtle difference here. Inside the inertial reference frame, all quantities remain unchanged. When they are measured from another reference system, which moves relative to the first, the values ​​of size and mass will change. If all parts of the Universe moved equally and uniformly, the theory of relativity would have nothing to do with the topic of our study. But this is not the case. It is the ability to observe the same events from different frames of reference that plays a significant role in the biblical analysis of cosmology that we undertake.

The second element of the foundation of special relativity is even more difficult to understand. One might even say that he is incomprehensible to the extreme. He states that the speed of light, c, is a constant quantity (c = 2.997925 x 108 meters per second in a vacuum - always) and the same in all reference frames. This fact was revealed from the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment. If you think about the meaning of this statement, you will be able to appreciate its audacity. Einstein took it upon himself to declare that, regardless of the speed of movement of the observer towards or away from the light source, the speed of light remains equal to the same c. No other form of motion (such as a sound wave) has this property. This seems highly illogical.

If a pitcher throws a ball to a catcher at 90 miles per hour, the catcher sees the ball coming at him at 90 miles per hour. Now, if, contrary to all rules, the catcher runs toward the pitcher at 20 miles per hour, the speed of the ball relative to the catcher will be 110 miles per hour (90 + 20). The speed of the ball relative to the pitcher will be the same as before, 90 miles per hour. Next time, instead of throwing the ball, the pitcher shows the catcher a picture of the ball. It moves towards the catcher at the speed of light (c), that is, approximately 300 million meters per second. The fleet-footed catcher, in turn, rushes towards the pitcher at a speed equal to one-tenth the speed of light, that is, 30 million meters per second. And what will this catcher of ours see? An image of a ball approaching him at 330 million meters per second? No! This is precisely the paradox of light - causing confusion, annoying, sometimes even infuriating, but at the same time liberating us.

The catcher sees the image of the ball approaching him at exactly the speed of light, 300 million meters per second, even though he is running towards it and thereby adding his own speed to the speed of light. Light, regardless of the speed of movement of the observer in relation to the light source, always moves at speed c. Always. And what speed of movement of the image of the ball does a pitcher standing motionless record? That's right, also s. How do two observers, one moving and the other standing still, record the same speed of light? Logic and common sense say that this is impossible. But relativity says that this is reality. And this reality was confirmed in the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Both observers register the same speed of light, because the fact of changes in mass, space and time - no matter how incomprehensible it may seem - is a fundamental law of relativistic mechanics and the Universe in which we live. The laws governing these changes are such that nothing happens within a given system that seems absurd. The one who is inside it does not notice any changes. But, observing another system moving past us, we see that the dimensions of the object along the direction of movement decrease in relation to the same dimensions of the object when it is at rest. Moreover, the clocks that showed the exact time when they were at rest, moving, begin to lag behind the clocks “at rest” in our frame of reference.

The combination of the constancy of the speed of light and the principle of relativity inevitably entails the dilation of time. Time dilation can be demonstrated using a thought experiment similar to the one used by Einstein when he developed the basic principles of relativity. An example of such a thought experiment is given by Taylor and Wheeler in their classic book "Physics of Space and Time"0.

Let's consider two reference systems, one of which is stationary and the other is moving. A stationary system is an ordinary physical laboratory. The second system is a rocket moving at high speed, completely transparent and permeable, inside which there is a crew consisting of absolutely transparent and permeable scientists. The rocket, due to its complete transparency and permeability, can pass through our laboratory without entering into any interaction with it and its contents. In the laboratory, from point A (Fig. 2), a flash of light occurs, which moves diagonally to the mirror located at point M. The light reflected from the mirror also passes diagonally to point B. The time of arrival of the rocket to the laboratory is determined in such a way that at the moment of the flash point A of the rocket coincides with point A of the laboratory. Let the speed of the rocket be such that point A of the rocket coincides with point B of the laboratory at the exact moment when the flash of light reaches point B. To observers in the rocket, it will appear that the light sent from point A on the rocket passes directly to point B M and returns back to the rocket's point A. Since the rocket's speed is constant (it is an inertial system), the people in the rocket do not know that it is moving.

The distance traveled by light, as perceived by the rocket passengers, is 2y (from point A to point M and back). The same path of light, visible to those in the laboratory, is the sum of the two sides of the triangle - from point A to point M and from point M to point B. Obviously, this path must be greater than the path visible to the passengers of the rocket. We can accurately calculate the difference between them using the Pythagorean theorem. Thus, we conclude that the path of light observed from the rocket is shorter than the path of light observed from the laboratory.

Rice. 2.

Let us remember that the speed of light in both systems is the same. This is one of the firmly established fundamental principles of the theory of relativity. It is also known that in all cases the time spent moving is equal to the distance traveled divided by the speed of movement. The time required to travel 100 miles at 50 miles per hour is two hours. Since the speed of light for both scientists in the laboratory and for scientists moving in the rocket is equal to the same c, and the distance traveled by light in the laboratory is greater than the distance traveled by it in the rocket, the time interval between the flash there should be more light at point A and the arrival of light at point B in the laboratory than in the rocket.

Only one event occurred. There was only one flash of light, and the light observed in two frames of reference completed its journey once. However, the duration of this event was different when measured in two different frames of reference.

This difference in measured time is called relativistic time dilation, and it is this dilation that convincingly aligns the six days of Creation with the 15 billion years of cosmology.

The concepts underlying general relativity are a development of ideas from special relativity, but are more complex. While special relativity deals with inertial systems, general relativity deals with both inertial and non-inertial (accelerated) systems. In non-inertial systems, external forces - such as gravitational forces - influence the movement of objects. A special relativistic property of gravity, which is directly related to the problem we are studying, is that gravity - just like speed - causes time dilation. The same clock on the Moon runs faster than on Earth because the Moon's gravity is weaker. As we will see, gravity plays a crucial role in reconciling Creation and the Big Bang.

The forces of gravitational attraction are felt in exactly the same way as the forces that cause acceleration. For example, in an ascending elevator we feel the force with which the floor presses on our feet; she actually pushes us up along with the elevator. This is perceived as the force we would feel standing in a stationary elevator if somehow the Earth's gravitational pull suddenly increased. Einstein reasoned that since gravity is perceived just like any other force that causes a change in motion, it should produce the same results. Since accelerating forces cause changes in motion and time dilation, changes in gravity must also cause time dilation.

Since the time dilation aspect of the theory of relativity is very significant for the problem of unifying the cosmological and biblical calendars, it is very important to show that time dilation actually exists. After all, relativistic changes become noticeable only in those cases when the relative speeds of motion approach the speed of light. Even at 30 million meters per second, one-tenth the speed of light, time dilation is less than one percent.

Speeds close to the speed of light are rare in everyday life, but are common in cosmology and high-energy physics. However, it should be noted that the real possibility of measuring time dilation does not make the idea itself more accessible to understanding. Nevertheless, this allows us to move it from the category of a purely theoretical concept to the realm of empirical facts. A fairly wide range of human activities - from experiments in high-energy physics laboratories to regular flights of commercial airlines - allows us to demonstrate time dilation.

One of the many elementary particles that arise during experiments in physics laboratories is the mu meson. It has a half-life of one and a half microseconds. Mu mesons, however, appear not only in high-energy physics laboratories, but also in the upper layers of the Earth's atmosphere when cosmic rays collide with the nuclei of atmospheric gas atoms. Since the energy of cosmic radiation is very high, mu mesons at the moment of their formation acquire a speed almost equal to the speed of light. At such high speeds, time dilation occurs, which can be measured. Even when moving at close to the speed of light, it takes mu mesons 200 microseconds to travel the 60 kilometers from the layer of the atmosphere in which they originate to the surface of the Earth. Since the mu meson has a half-life of one and a half microseconds, a transit time of 200 microseconds covers 133 of its half-lives. Let us remember that during each such half-period half of the remaining particles decay. After 133 half-cycles, the fraction of mu-mesons that should survive and reach the surface of the Earth will be equal to "/2 x 1/2 x "/2 and so on 133 times, which is one millionth of a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of the number of mu-mesons that began their journey to the surface of the Earth. This number is so small that almost no mu meson should reach the Earth. The vast majority of them will fall apart along the way. However, if we compare the number of mu mesons produced in the upper layers of the atmosphere with the number of mu mesons reaching the surface of the Earth, we are surprised to find that "/8 of their initial number successfully arrives at their destination." Survival" of 1/8 muons means that only three half-periods are completed during their 60 km journey. Thus, for a mu meson moving close to the speed of light, the elapsed (relativistic) time is only three half-cycle - 4.5 microseconds (3 x 1.5 microseconds) For an observer on the surface of the Earth, at least 200 microseconds will pass - the minimum time required to travel 60 kilometers from the upper atmosphere to the surface. and the same single event occurs over two different time intervals - 4.5 microseconds in the frame of reference of a rapidly moving mu-meson and 200 microseconds in the frame of reference of an observer standing on the surface.Remember once again that we are talking about a single event. But due to the fact that the observer and the observed object are moving relative to each other, for this one event there are two different periods of time. And both of them are absolutely true!

But mu mesons are quite exotic particles, and a skeptic might well chuckle and shake his head in disbelief. After all, no observer can travel in the company of muons. We rely only on their half-life as a clock moving with them.

What about a real clock and a person moving with it and measuring the dilation of time in the most direct way? This would obviously look more convincing. And this is exactly what was reported in the prestigious journal Science by Hafele and Keating12 from the University of Washington and the US Naval Laboratory. They sent four sets of cesium clocks on Boeing 707 and Concorde aircraft owned by TWA and Pan Am and making regular commercial flights around the world. These watches were chosen because they are extremely accurate.

The earth rotates from west to east. If we look at the Earth from space, while being above its north pole, we will see that when flying to the east, the speed of the aircraft is added to the speed of the Earth. As predicted by the theory of relativity, the clocks on board the plane were behind the same clocks located at the US Naval Laboratory in Washington, D.C. (all clocks used in this experiment were provided by the laboratory). When flying west, the speed of the plane is subtracted from the speed of rotation of the Earth and, in full agreement with the theory of relativity, the clocks on board this plane have moved forward. According to Haefele and Keating, “In science, relevant empirical facts are more powerful than theoretical arguments. These results provide an unambiguous empirical solution to the famous clock paradox."3

Not only the perception of time, but also the actual passage of time changes depending on the relative movement of observers. Within any given frame of reference, everything looks quite normal. But when two systems are first separated and then reconnected and the clock readings are compared, the passage of time in them turns out to be different (actual “aging”).

A particularly interesting aspect of the Hefele-Keating time dilation experiments was that they tested both special and general relativity. According to general relativity, differences in the strength of gravity affect duration in the same way as differences in relative speed, as postulated by special relativity. The effect of a gravitational field on any object is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between objects. As the distance doubles, the gravitational attraction decreases by a factor of four. The further an object is from the Earth, the weaker the Earth's attraction to it. Because airplanes in flight are high above the Earth's surface (the typical flight altitude of a Boeing 707 is 10 km, and a Concorde is 20 km), the gravitational effect of the Earth on the watches on board the aircraft was different from the effect on the watches that were on the surface of the Earth in the Navy laboratories. The changes in clock time recorded in the experiment were consistent with the predictions of general relativity (which takes into account the influence of both motion and gravity).

This experiment, like all others like it, proved that Einstein's special and general theories of relativity correctly describe the real characteristics of our Universe. Relativity is no longer a pure theory. Relativity is a proven, empirically proven fact. In other words, the theory of relativity has become the law of relativity.

And now, based on this law, substantiated by one of the natural sciences that describe the Universe, we can continue to discuss the first six days of Creation - that period in which natural science and theology, at first glance, contradict each other.

Let us consider the changes in the relationship between the Creator, the Universe and man that have occurred since that moment which we call “the beginning.” At the same time, we should not lose sight of for a moment that the difference in the passage of time can be recorded only if we compare the observation of the same events from two different reference systems. But this is not enough - it is also necessary that either the gravitational forces in these two reference systems differ significantly from each other, or that the relative speed of their movement approaches 300 million meters per second, that is, the speed of light. Inside each system, regardless of its relative speed or the gravitational force acting in it, everything happens in full accordance with Newton's laws, that is, everything looks normal and logical, just like here on Earth, although we rush through at high speed space.

The Creator had and still has a certain interest in creating the Universe. We can assume this based on the fact that the Universe exists. However, we do not know what this interest is. However, we can find some hints of this by analyzing the interaction between the Creator and the Universe throughout the entire time of its creation and existence. Traditional theology holds that if the Creator had wished to create the universe in one fell swoop, he would have done so. But it is clear from the biblical account that his plan was not to create a fully formed universe through a single act. For some reason, the method of gradual development was chosen. And the first two chapters of the book “Genesis” are devoted precisely to the description of the stage-by-stage formation of the Universe.

If we play by the rules according to which the Universe operates today - and these rules are the physical laws we know - then the gradual development of the Universe from the primary substance that existed at the moment of the Big Bang was absolutely necessary for the emergence of man. But the Earth itself and everything that exists on it are not direct products of the Big Bang. We are told quite clearly that at the very beginning the Earth was formless and empty, or in Hebrew gohu and bohu. Leading nuclear particle physicists now refer to T and B (tohu and bohu) as the two original “bricks” from which all matter is built. The force of the Big Bang literally compressed these GiBs into hydrogen and helium - at that moment almost no other elements were formed. And only the alchemy of the cosmos subsequently created all other elements from these primordial hydrogen and helium.

The Earth and the entire solar system are a jumble of matter that has reached us after countless cycles of super-compression in the depths of stars. This pressure compressed hydrogen and helium so tightly that their nuclei joined and separated again, forming heavier elements such as carbon (truly the substance of life), iron, uranium and the other 89 elements that make up the Universe. The stars then exploded and spewed out their newly formed elements into the Universe, which greedily absorbed them, using them to create other stars. The birth of stars and their deaths were necessary to eventually transform the hydrogen and helium formed in the first moments after the Big Bang into the elements necessary to create life in the form with which we are familiar. In their interpretations of the Bible, commentators such as Maimonides and Rashi explained that God created and destroyed many worlds in the process of creating life on Earth. But here I am not relying on Maimonides; I obtained the above information from astrophysicists Woosley and Phillips.

So, if we have everything to do in the six days before Adam appears, how can we squeeze all the cycles of world formation and destruction into that period of time? The biblical commentators on whom we rely clearly state that the first six days of Creation are six days of 24 hours each. This means that someone who kept track of time then had to record the passage of these same 24 hours a day. But who could be present at that time to measure the passage of time? Until the moment when, after six days, Adam appeared, only the Lord God could keep track of the clock. And that's the whole point.

When our Universe was created - until the very moment of the appearance of man - God was not closely connected with the Earth. During the first one or two days of the six days of Creation, the Earth did not even exist yet! Although Genesis 1:1 states that “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” the next verse states that the Earth was empty and without form. The first verse of the book of Genesis is, in fact, a very general statement, meaning that at the very beginning a primary substance was created, from which, during the next six days, the heavens and earth were to be formed. Below, in verse 31:17 of the book “Exodus”, this is said more clearly: “... in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth...”. What were the heavens and the Earth “made of” during these six days? From the substance created "at the beginning" of those six days. Since there was no Earth in the early Universe, and since there was no possibility of a close connection or interpenetration of reference systems, there was no common calendar for God and for the Earth.

The law of relativity has taught us that it is not even possible for God to choose a calendar that would be fair for all parts of the Universe, or at least for a limited number of them, which played a role in the emergence of humanity. The law of relativity, one of the fundamental laws of the Universe established at its creation, makes it impossible for the existence of a common frame of reference for the Creator and for each part of that totality of matter that ultimately turned into humanity and the planet Earth on which it lives.

We know that, in accordance with the law of relativity, in an expanding Universe it is impossible to describe the time covering a certain sequence of events in one part of the Universe in such a way that it is equal to the time of the same events observed from another part of the Universe. Differences in the motion and gravitational forces of different galaxies or even stars in the same galaxy turn absolute time into a purely local phenomenon. Time flows differently in different parts of the Universe.

The Bible is a guidebook describing humanity's journey through life and time. To instill in man an appreciation for the physical wonder of the Universe, this guide includes a description of the process that led from an empty, formless Universe to a home in which humanity can exist. But it is almost impossible to choose a single time frame to describe this process, since too many factors directly affect the speed of time. These factors include gravitational forces in many stars, in the depths of which primordial hydrogen and helium were transformed into the elements underlying life, and the movement of intergalactic gas, condensing in the process of movement in the nebula, and then into stars, and supernova explosions , marking the death and subsequent rebirth of the stars that make up the Milky Way and the mass of the Earth. The passage of time was an aspect of life that, before Einstein's insight, we mistakenly thought was unchangeable. It is unrealistic, no, it is simply impossible for the same clock in all centuries to measure the age of all that cosmic substance of which we are composed.

The odyssey of matter from the substance of the Big Bang to its present state was too complex, too diverse for the passage of time in it to be measured by the same clock. Who can say now how many galaxies or which particular supernova ultimately gave rise to the elements that make up our physical bodies? We humans and everything else in the solar system, including the Sun and planets, are fragments of stars long gone. We are literally made of stardust. Which atoms of carbon, nitrogen or oxygen does this tense refer to? To yours or to your neighbor's atoms? The ones that are part of a particle of your skin, or the ones that are in a drop of your blood? It is likely that each of them began in the depths of different stars, and therefore each of them has its own unique age. The transformations of cosmic matter that occurred before the formation of the Earth took place in myriads of stars, simultaneously and sequentially. Each star, each supernova had its own gravity and its own speed of movement, and therefore its own space-time frame of reference.

Billions of cosmic clocks ticked (and are still ticking), each at its own, locally correct pace. They all started ticking at one moment - the moment of the Big Bang, and they all simultaneously reached the time period when Adam appeared. But the absolute, local time that elapsed from the "beginning" to the moment when each of these particles of matter contributed to the creation of humanity was very different for each star and for each particle. Although the transformations of matter began and ended at the same time, it follows from Einstein’s theory that the age of each given particle of matter differs very significantly from the age of other particles of matter with which it eventually united, forming the solar system, and then humanity. Our reasoning is no more or less sophisticated than, say, detecting 200 microseconds in the 4.5 microseconds that pass while mu mesons, formed in the upper atmosphere under the impacts of cosmic radiation, reach the surface of the Earth. In 4.5 microseconds, 200 microseconds pass. This proven fact can be better understood through Einstein's thought experiment, in which scientists aboard a high-speed rocket and scientists in a stationary laboratory record two different periods of time for the same event. This situation has nothing to do with the statement of the late W.K. Fields, who said that during one long evening he lived in Philadelphia for a whole week15. His statement relates to the realm of emotional sensation; in our case we are dealing with a physical fact. When we talk about a billion years, we don't mean that we experience them as a billion years. A billion years have truly passed! If during those same six days there were a clock in that part of the Universe that is now occupied by the Earth, it would not necessarily record 15 billion years. In the early Universe, the curvature of space and time in this place was likely completely different than it is now.

In order to describe the consistent development of the Universe, it was necessary to find some kind of compromise. As such a compromise, the Creator chose for the time preceding the appearance of Adam his own frame of reference, in which the entire Universe was perceived as a single whole.

The creation of Adam was qualitatively different from all other events that accompanied the creation of the Universe. It signaled a fundamental change in God's relationship to the universe. We know that all objects in the Universe, organic and inorganic, animate and inanimate, are composed of matter, the origin of which can be traced back to the primordial creation. In this sense, humanity is no exception. It was clearly explained to us that the material source of our origin is the “dust of the earth.” All living beings (Genesis 1:30), including humans (Genesis 2:7), were given a living soul (nefesh in Hebrew). However, only Adam was given something new, unique to the entire Universe - the living breath of God (Genesis 2:7).

And it was at this moment, when God breathed into Adam his breath of life (in Hebrew, neshamah), both - the Creator and his creation - became inextricably linked with each other. It was at this moment that, out of billions of possible hours, only one was irrevocably chosen, by which from now on the course of all future events had to be measured.

In the jargon of relativistic physicists, at the moment of the appearance of Adam, that part of the Universe that became the habitat of man began to function in the same space-time frame of reference as its Creator. Starting from this point, the chronology of the Bible and the flow of time on Earth became unified - the general space-time relationship between God and man was henceforth fixed.

The results of this new connection are obvious from the first glance at the biblical text. There is a parallelism between the dates to which the Bible refers to the events that occurred after the creation of Adam, and the corresponding archaeological estimates of the chronology of the same events. The Bronze Age of the biblical calendar and the Bronze Age of archeology do coincide. According to the Bible, Hazor was destroyed by Joshua 3,300 years ago; archeology, as it turned out after detailed research, dates this event to the same period. The part of the biblical calendar beginning with the creation of Adam seems quite logical in our eyes, and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls proves that the Bible correctly describes events thousands of years before modern archaeological finds confirm them. If we did not know the law of relativity and if we tried to date the events that took place on Earth in the time after Adam from another point in the Universe, we would now wonder why in our perception the past time differs from what is recorded by a clock on Earth.

In the first six days of the existence of our Universe, the Eternal Clock measured 144 hours. We now know that this period of time does not necessarily coincide with the same period of time measured in another part of the Universe. As inhabitants of this Universe, we evaluate the passage of time with the help of clocks located in our local frame of reference; Such clocks include radioactive dating, geological data, and measurements of speeds and distances in the expanding Universe. It is with these watches that humanity travels through time and space.

When the Bible describes how our universe develops day by day during the first six days following Creation, it is actually talking about six days of 24 hours each. But the frame of reference in which these days were calculated included the entire Universe. This first week of Creation is by no means a fairy tale designed to satisfy the curiosity of a child in order to be discarded as unnecessary later, with the advent of the wisdom of an adult. Quite the contrary - it contains hints of events that humanity is only now beginning to understand.

The sages of the Bible have long warned that our understanding of the events of the first six days of Creation will not correspond to our understanding of nature in the times following the appearance of Adam. They understood this from the description of the Sabbath rest contained in the Ten Commandments. If we compare the text in Exodus 20:11 with the text in Zechariah 5:11 and 2 Samuel 21:10, we see that both texts use the same word for rest, but with different shades. From the way the word is used there, it can be concluded that God did not actually “rest” on the first Sabbath. Rather, the Creator paused from his work to survey the Universe that was created in the first six days. Our perception of this break, according to Maimonides, is that at all times, beginning with this first Sabbath, the laws of nature, including the passage of time, will function in a “normal” manner. In contrast, the course of events that occurred during the first six days could appear illogical, as if there had been a violation of the laws of nature and time. As we see, the prediction of the sages that we would perceive the biblical and scientific pictures of the early Universe as contradictory to each other has actually come true.

The first Saturday marks the beginning of the calendar, which begins with the creation of Adam. And it is precisely this part of the calendar that corresponds to our logic-based perception of reality. Thanks to the extraordinary fact of the relativity of time, Einstein's law of relativity, the biblical calendar is correct on these six days. It has become unnecessary to explain the discovery of fossil finds by saying that the Creator deliberately placed them where they were found to test our faith in the act of Creation or to satisfy our curiosity. The rate of radioactive decay in rocks, meteorites and fossils correctly reflects the passage of time, but this passage of time was and continues to be measured by clocks located in our earthly frame of reference. The time recorded by these clocks was and continues to be only relatively, that is, only locally, correct. Other clocks, located in other reference systems, attribute events occurring on Earth to different, but no less correct, moments in time. And it will always be so, as long as the Universe obeys the laws of nature.

LITERATURE

• 1. Rashi. "Comments on the Book of Genesis." 1:1.
• 2. Nachmanides. "Commentaries on the Torah". Genesis 5:4.
• 3. “Archaeology and Old Testament Studies.” Ed. Thomas. (Thomas, ed., Archeology and Old Testament Study).
• 4. Newton. "Mathematical principles of natural philosophy". (Newton, Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy).
• 5. Einstein. "Relativity: special and general theories". (Einstein, Relativity: The Special and General Theories).
• 6. Cohen. "The Birth of a New Physics". (Cohen, The Birth of a New Physics).
• 7. Pagels. "Perfect symmetry." (Pagels, Perfect Symmetry).
• 8. Shankland. "Michelson-Morley Experiment". (Shankland, “The Michelson-Morley experiment,” American Journal of Physics, 32 (1964):16).
• 9. Herman. "The Origin of Quantum Theory" (1899-1913). (Hermann, The Genesis of the Quantum Theory (1899-1913)).
• 10. Taylor and Wheeler. "Physics of Space-Time". (Taylor and Wheeler, Spacetime Physics).
• 11. Haefele and Keating, “Around the World Atomic Clocks: Observations of Relativistic Time Shift.” (Hafele and Keating, “Around-the-world atomic clocks: observed relativistic time gains.” Science, 117 (1972): 168).
• 12. Woosley and Phillips, “Supernova 1987A1.” (Woosley and Phillips, “Supernova 1987A!” Science, 240 (1988): 750).
• 13. Maimonides. “Mentor of the Hesitant,” part 1, ch. 67.

The theory of relativity was introduced by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. What is its essence? Let's consider the main points and describe the TOE in clear language.

The theory of relativity practically eliminated the inconsistencies and contradictions of 20th century physics, forced a radical change in the idea of ​​the structure of space-time, and was experimentally confirmed in numerous experiments and studies.

Thus, TOE formed the basis of all modern fundamental physical theories. In fact, this is the mother of modern physics!

To begin with, it is worth noting that there are 2 theories of relativity:

• Special theory of relativity (STR) – considers physical processes in uniformly moving objects.
• General relativity (GTR) - describes accelerating objects and explains the origin of such phenomena as gravity and existence.

It is clear that STR appeared earlier and is essentially a part of GTR. Let's talk about her first.

STO in simple words

The theory is based on the principle of relativity, according to which any laws of nature are the same with respect to bodies that are stationary and moving at a constant speed. And from such a seemingly simple thought it follows that the speed of light (300,000 m/s in vacuum) is the same for all bodies.

For example, imagine that you were given a spaceship from the distant future that can fly at great speed. A laser cannon is installed on the bow of the ship, capable of shooting photons forward.

Relative to the ship, such particles fly at the speed of light, but relative to a stationary observer, it would seem they should fly faster, since both speeds are summed up.

However, in reality this does not happen! An outside observer sees photons traveling at 300,000 m/s, as if the spacecraft's speed had not been added to them.

You need to remember: relative to any body, the speed of light will be a constant value, no matter how fast it moves.

From this follow amazing conclusions such as time dilation, longitudinal contraction and the dependence of body weight on speed. Read more about the most interesting consequences of the Special Theory of Relativity in the article at the link below.

The essence of general relativity (GR)

To understand it better, we need to combine two facts again:

• We live in four-dimensional space

Space and time are manifestations of the same entity called the “space-time continuum.” This is 4-dimensional space-time with coordinate axes x, y, z and t.

We humans are unable to perceive the 4 dimensions equally. In essence, we only see projections of a real four-dimensional object onto space and time.

Interestingly, the theory of relativity does not state that bodies change when they move. 4-dimensional objects always remain unchanged, but with relative movement their projections can change. And we perceive this as time slowing down, size reduction, etc.

• All bodies fall at a constant speed and do not accelerate

Let's do a scary thought experiment. Imagine that you are riding in a closed elevator and are in a state of weightlessness.

This situation could arise only for two reasons: either you are in space, or you are freely falling along with the cabin under the influence of earth's gravity.

Without looking out of the booth, it is absolutely impossible to distinguish between these two cases. It’s just that in one case you fly uniformly, and in the other with acceleration. You'll have to guess!

Perhaps Albert Einstein himself was thinking about an imaginary elevator, and he had one amazing thought: if these two cases cannot be distinguished, then falling due to gravity is also a uniform movement. Movement is simply uniform in four-dimensional space-time, but in the presence of massive bodies (for example,) it is curved and uniform movement is projected into our usual three-dimensional space in the form of accelerated movement.

Let's look at another simpler, although not entirely correct, example of the curvature of two-dimensional space.

You can imagine that any massive body creates some kind of shaped funnel underneath it. Then other bodies flying past will not be able to continue their movement in a straight line and will change their trajectory according to the bends of curved space.

By the way, if the body does not have much energy, then its movement may turn out to be closed.

It is worth noting that from the point of view of moving bodies, they continue to move in a straight line, because they do not feel anything that makes them turn. They just ended up in a curved space and, without realizing it, have a non-linear trajectory.

It should be noted that 4 dimensions are bent, including time, so this analogy should be treated with caution.

Thus, in the general theory of relativity, gravity is not a force at all, but only a consequence of the curvature of space-time. At the moment, this theory is a working version of the origin of gravity and is in excellent agreement with experiments.

Surprising consequences of general relativity

Light rays can be bent when flying near massive bodies. Indeed, distant objects have been found in space that “hide” behind others, but light rays bend around them, thanks to which the light reaches us.

It is thanks to Albert Einstein that you can understand where a library or a store is located nearby.

And finally, general relativity predicts the existence of black holes around which gravity is so strong that time simply stops nearby. Therefore, light that falls into a black hole cannot leave it (reflect).

In the center of a black hole, due to colossal gravitational compression, an object with an infinitely high density is formed, and this, it seems, cannot exist.

Thus, general relativity can lead to very contradictory conclusions, in contrast to , which is why the majority of physicists did not accept it completely and continued to look for an alternative.

But she manages to predict many things successfully, for example, a recent sensational discovery confirmed the theory of relativity and made us once again remember the great scientist with his tongue hanging out. If you love science, read WikiScience.