The Theory of General Relativity Is Valid

Introduction - Special Relativity My opponent has said that he would like to consider special relativity as well as general relativity. I will simply put forth its two postulates, and then provide some evidence for each postulate. The first postulate is that the laws of nature are the same in all inertial reference frames. This makes logical sense, and can be proved through the use of mathematical principles beyond the scope of this debate. Further, there have been many experimental studies that confirm this, such as the 1908 Trouton and Rankine experiment on, ". .. the resistance of a coil fixed in the lab, for various orientations relative to the motion of the Earth. Its null result is consistent with SR. "[1][2] The second postulate is that the speed of light in a vacuum is the same in all inertial frames. This has been proved countless times. There have been no confirmed exceptions to this postulate. The famous 1887 Michelson and Morley experiment showed statistically insignificant results. Its failure eventually put to rest the idea of a luminiferous aether in favor of Einstein's eventual formulation of this postulate. Time dilation and length contraction also support the theory, both of which have been experimentally verified numerous times as well[1][2] Defining General Relativity I now want to provide a little more understanding of what general relativity is. "As he worked out the equations for his general theory of relativity, Einstein realized that massive objects caused a distortion in space-time. Imagine setting a large body in the center of a trampoline. The body would press down into the fabric, causing it to dimple. A marble rolled around the edge would spiral inward toward the body, pulled in much the same way that the gravity of a planet pulls at rocks in space. " This provides a description of the change in the way gravity was viewed in general relativity. [3] Experimental Verification of General Relativity There are a large number of different phenomena predicted by general relativity have been observed, and can be due to nothing else but general relativity itself. I will present three of these predictions. The Perihelion Precession of Mercury Orbits are not stable. They change from rotation to rotation. One way to measure precession is by tracking the change in the perihelion, or the point in a planet's orbit where it is closest to the sun. The perihelion precession can be illustrated here: [9] Newtonian mechanics can predict the precession of every planet in the solar system, except for Mercury. Because Mercury is closest to the sun, it precesses the most. The precession of Mercury's perihelion moved a little too much based on the Newtonian predictions. Newtonian mechanics predicted a precession of around 531 arc seconds per century. However, the observed precession was around 574 arc seconds per century. that was a difference of 43 arc seconds. That was not statistically insignificant, and could not be ignored. Something was missing from the purely Newtonian model. [4] "A number of ad hoc and ultimately unsuccessful solutions were proposed, but they tended to introduce more problems. In general relativity, this remaining precession, or change of orientation of the orbital ellipse within its orbital plane, is explained by gravitation being mediated by the curvature of spacetime. " General relativity presented the only viable solution to the problem. [4] "In contrast, Einstein was able to predict, without any adjustments whatsoever, that the orbit of Mercury should precess by an extra 43 seconds of arc per century should the General Theory of Relativity be correct. " The equations of general relativity showed an additional 43 arc seconds of precession per century, which exactly equals the deficit in the purely Newtonian system. General relativity is the only explanation for this, and it is clear that Newtonian mechanics cannot explain everything in the universe. [5] Gravitational Lensing Spacetime can be thought as a fabric. Every object in space warps the fabric of spacetime, creating a depression. This is the description of gravity according to general relativity - an object "falls" into the spacetime depression of another object. An analogy would be two people holding a flat blanket in the air with a ball in the middle. The ball creates a depression in the middle of the blanket. Spacetime so bends orbits, but it also bends light. The creates an illusion known as gravitational lensing, where the apparent image of an object is different from the actual position of the object. A simple illustration of gravitational lensing is shown here: [8] Gravitational lensing would only be a feature in general relativity, and thus its very existence is evidence for general relativity. "Recently, these telescopes have measured the deflection of radio waves by the Sun to extremely high precision, confirming the amount of deflection predicted by general relativity aspect to the 0.03% level. " That is a very statistically significant result, and shows that gravitational lensing is a real thing. The most extreme case of gravitational lensing can be seen with an Einstein ring, where the light is reflected so much that it forms a ring. Several of these Einstein rings have been photographed. Gravitational lensing can only be explained with general relativity's spacetime fabric model. [4][6] Frame Dragging We know already that mass distorts spacetime, but rotating mass tends to drag the spacetime it distorts with it. This effect is known as frame dragging. It is analogous to a bowling ball spinning in molasses, as it tends to drag the molasses along with it as it spins. This tends to cause the orbits of satellites to shift. This effect is measureable with the use of a gyroscope, and was recently determined by LAGEOS I and II and Gravity Probe B. "We found that the plane of the orbits of LAGEOS I and II were shifted about six feet (two meters) per year in the direction of the Earth's rotation. This is about 10 percent greater than what is predicted by general relativity, which is within our margin of error of plus or minus 20 percent. ""The results [for Gravity Probe B] reported the frame dragging effect (caused by the Earth's rotation) added up to 37 milliarcseconds with an error of about 19 percent. " Frame dragging has been shown to exist, and is only compatible with the spacetime fabric model of general relativity. [7][4] Conclusion Einstein's theories of special and general relativity have been vigorously tested by looking at the predicted and observe data from a number of predictions that they both make, from the confirmation of the two postulates of special relativity, to the observation of the greater perihelion precession of mercury, gravitational lensing, and frame dragging. It can be reasonably concluded that the laws of the universe are the same for all inertial reference frames, that the speed of light is constant, and that mass distorts the spacetime fabric, thus providing a description of how gravity works. The theory of general relativity has been proven valid time and again. Sources [1]: . http://www.astro.virginia.edu... [2]: . http://math.ucr.edu... [3]: . http://www.space.com... [4]: . http://en.wikipedia.org... [5]: . http://physics.ucr.edu... [6]: . http://astro.berkeley.edu... [7]: . http://www.phy.duke.edu... [8]: . http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov... [9]: . http://ase.tufts.edu...