"Another topic deserving discussion is Einstein’s modification of Newton’s law of gravitation. In spite of all the excitement it created, Newton’s law of gravitation is not correct! It was modified by Einstein to take into account the theory of relativity. According to Newton, the gravitational effect is instantaneous, that is, if we were to move a mass, we would at once feel a new force because of the new position of that mass; by such means we could send signals at infinite speed. Einstein advanced arguments which suggest that we cannot send signals faster than the speed of light, so the law of gravitation must be wrong. By correcting it to take the delays into account, we have a new law, called Einstein’s law of gravitation. One feature of this new law which is quite easy to understand is this: In the Einstein relativity theory, anything which has energy has mass—mass in the sense that it is attracted gravitationally. Even light, which has an energy, has a “mass.” When a light beam, which has energy in it, comes past the sun there is an attraction on it by the sun. Thus the light does not go straight, but is deflected. During the eclipse of the sun, for example, the stars which are around the sun should appear displaced from where they would be if the sun were not there, and this has been observed."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. I, Ch. 7. The Theory of Gravitation
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Speed of light
44 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Speed of light →
Related Quotes
"You will begin to touch heaven, Jonathan, in the moment that you touch perfect speed. And that isn't flying a thousan…"
"Fermat had recourse to the principle of the economy of nature. Heron and Olympiodorus had pointed out in antiquity th…"
"The speed of light sucks."
"One of the funniest examples of these kinds of statistics comes from Evolution: Possible or Impossible by James F. Co…"
"Hubble's law predicts that galaxies beyond ...the Hubble distance, recede faster than the speed of light ...this dist…"
"The radiation of the cosmic microwave background... has a red shift of about 1,000. ...the hot plasma of the early un…"
"A light beam that is farther than the Hubble distance of 14 billion light-years ...cannot keep up with the stretching…"
"When you are next out of doors on a summer night, turn your head towards the zenith. Almost vertically above you will…"
"For over 200 years the equations of motion enunciated by Newton were believed to describe nature correctly, and the f…"
"One of the problems has to do with the speed of light and the difficulties involved in trying to exceed it. You can't…"