"The four men who laid the foundations
of physics on which I have been able to construct my theory... ."
Galileo, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz
1907-1915
As early as 1907, while Einstein and others explored the implications of his
special theory of relativity, he was already thinking about a more general theory.
The special theory had shown how to relate the measurements made in one laboratory
to the measurements made in another laboratory moving in a uniform way with
respect to the first laboratory. Could he extend the theory to deal with laboratories
moving in arbitrary ways, speeding up, slowing down, changing direction? Einstein
saw a possible link between such accelerated motion and the familiar force of
gravity. He was impressed by a fact known to Galileo and Newton but not fully
appreciated before Einstein puzzled over it. All bodies, however different,
if released from the same height will fall with exactly the same constant acceleration
(in the absence of air resistance). Like the invariant velocity of light on
which Einstein had founded his special theory of relativity, here was an invariance
that could be the starting point for a theory.
"The physicist cannot simply surrender to the philosopher the critical contemplation
of the theoretical foundations; for he himself knows best and feels most surely
where the shoe pinches.... he must try to make clear in his own mind just how
far the concepts which he uses are justified... The whole of science is nothing
more than a refinement of everyday thinking."
As he often did in his work, Einstein used a "thought experiment." Suppose that
a scientist is enclosed in a large box somewhere, and that he releases a stone.
The scientist sees the stone fall to the floor of the box with a constant acceleration.
He might conclude that his box is in a place where there is a force of gravity
pulling downward. But this might not be true. The entire box could be free from
gravity, but accelerating upward in empty space on a rocket: the stone could
be stationary and the floor rising to meet it. The physicist in the box cannot,
Einstein noted, tell the difference between the two cases. Therefore there must
be some profound connection between accelerated motion and the force of gravity.
It remained to work out this connection.
Einstein began to search for particular equations -- ones that would relate
the measurements made by two observers who are moving in an arbitrary way with
respect to one another. The search was arduous, with entire years spent in blind
alleys. Einstein had to master more elaborate mathematical techniques than he
had ever expected to need, and to work at a higher level of abstraction than
ever before. Meanwhile his life was unsettled. He separated from his wife. And
he began to participate in politics after the First World War broke out.
"I have just completed the most splendid work of my life..." --to his
son Hans Albert, 1915
Success in his theoretical work was sealed in 1915. The new equations of gravitation
had an essential logical simplicity, despite their unfamiliar mathematical form.
To describe the action of gravity, the equations showed how the presence of
matter warped the very framework of space and time. This warping would determine
how an object moved. Einstein tested his theory by correctly calculating a small
discrepancy in the motion of the planet Mercury, a discrepancy that astronomers
had long been at a loss to explain.
Learn more in an essay on Einstein's Worldview by Gerald Holton