The following is a
timeline of
gravitational physics and
general relativity.
Before 1500
* 3rd century BC -
Aristarchus of Samos
Aristarchus of Samos (; grc-gre, Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, ''Aristarkhos ho Samios''; ) was an ancient Greek astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or ...
proposes heliocentric model, measures the distance to the Moon and its size
1500s
* 1543 – Nicolaus Copernicus places the Sun at the gravitational center, starting a revolution in science
* 1583 –
Galileo Galilei induces the period relationship of a
pendulum from observations (according to later biographer).
* 1586 –
Simon Stevin
Simon Stevin (; 1548–1620), sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish mathematician, scientist and music theorist. He made various contributions in many areas of science and engineering, both theoretical and practical. He also translated vario ...
demonstrates that two objects of different mass accelerate at the same rate when dropped.
* 1589 – Galileo Galilei describes a
hydrostatic balance for measuring
specific gravity.
* 1590 – Galileo Galilei formulates modified
Aristotelean theory of motion (later retracted) based on
density rather than weight of objects.
1600s
* 1602 – Galileo Galilei conducts experiments on pendulum motion.
* 1604 – Galileo Galilei conducts experiments with
inclined planes and induces the law of falling objects.
* 1607 – Galileo Galilei derives a mathematical formulation of the law of falling objects based on his earlier experiments.
* 1608 – Galileo Galilei discovers the
parabolic arc of
projectile
A projectile is an object that is propelled by the application of an external force and then moves freely under the influence of gravity and air resistance. Although any objects in motion through space are projectiles, they are commonly found in ...
s through experiment.
* 1609 –
Johannes Kepler
Johannes Kepler (; ; 27 December 1571 – 15 November 1630) was a German astronomer, mathematician, astrologer, natural philosopher and writer on music. He is a key figure in the 17th-century Scientific Revolution, best known for his laws ...
describes the motion of planets around the Sun, now known as
Kepler's laws of planetary motion
In astronomy, Kepler's laws of planetary motion, published by Johannes Kepler between 1609 and 1619, describe the orbits of planets around the Sun. The laws modified the heliocentric theory of Nicolaus Copernicus, replacing its circular orbits ...
.
* 1640 –
Ismaël Bullialdus suggests an inverse-square gravitational force law.
* 1665 –
Isaac Newton introduces an inverse-square
universal law of gravitation uniting terrestrial and celestial theories of motion and uses it to predict the orbit of the
Moon and the parabolic arc of projectiles.
* 1684 – Isaac Newton proves that
planets moving under an inverse-square force law will obey
Kepler's laws
* 1686 – Isaac Newton uses a fixed length
pendulum with weights of varying composition to test the
weak equivalence principle to 1 part in 1000
1700s
* 1798 –
Henry Cavendish measures the force of gravity between two masses, leading to the first accurate value for the
gravitational constant
The gravitational constant (also known as the universal gravitational constant, the Newtonian constant of gravitation, or the Cavendish gravitational constant), denoted by the capital letter , is an empirical physical constant involved in ...
1800s
* 1846 –
Urbain Le Verrier and
John Couch Adams, studying
Uranus' orbit, independently prove that another, farther planet must exist.
Neptune
Neptune is the eighth planet from the Sun and the farthest known planet in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 times ...
was found at the predicted moment and position.
* 1855 – Le Verrier observes a 35 arcsecond per century excess
precession of
Mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
's
orbit and attributes it to another planet, inside Mercury's orbit. The planet was never found. See
Vulcan.
* 1876 –
William Kingdon Clifford
William Kingdon Clifford (4 May 18453 March 1879) was an English mathematician and philosopher. Building on the work of Hermann Grassmann, he introduced what is now termed geometric algebra, a special case of the Clifford algebra named in his ...
suggests that the motion of matter may be due to changes in the geometry of space
* 1882 –
Simon Newcomb observes a 43 arcsecond per century excess precession of Mercury's orbit
* 1887 –
Albert A. Michelson and
Edward W. Morley
Edward Williams Morley (January 29, 1838 – February 24, 1923) was an American scientist known for his precise and accurate measurement of the atomic weight of oxygen, and for the Michelson–Morley experiment.
Biography
Morley was born in New ...
in
their famous experiment do not detect the
ether drift
* 1889 –
Loránd Eötvös uses a
torsion balance to test the
weak equivalence principle to 1 part in one billion
* 1893 –
Ernst Mach
Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach ...
states
Mach's principle; first constructive attack on the idea of Newtonian absolute space
* 1898 –
Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...
states that simultaneity is relative
* 1899 –
Hendrik Antoon Lorentz published Lorentz transformations
1900s
* 1902 –
Paul Gerber
Paul Gerber (1854 Berlin, Germany – 13 August 1909 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany) was a German physics teacher. He studied in Berlin from 1872-1875. In 1877 he became a teacher at the Realgymnasium (high school) in Stargard in Pommern. Gerber ...
explains the movement of the perihelion of Mercury using finite speed of gravity. His formula, at least approximately, matches the later model from Einstein's general relativity, but Gerber's theory was incorrect.
* 1904 –
Henri Poincaré
Jules Henri Poincaré ( S: stress final syllable ; 29 April 1854 – 17 July 1912) was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathematics as "The ...
presents the principle of relativity for
electromagnetism
* 1905 –
Albert Einstein completes his theory of
special relativity and states the
law of mass-energy conservation: E=mc
2
* 1907 –
Albert Einstein introduces the principle of equivalence of gravitation and inertia and uses it to predict the
gravitational redshift
* 1915 –
Albert Einstein completes his theory of
general relativity. The new theory explains
Mercury
Mercury commonly refers to:
* Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun
* Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg
* Mercury (mythology), a Roman god
Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to:
Companies
* Merc ...
's strange motions that baffled
Urbain Le Verrier.
* 1915 –
Karl Schwarzschild publishes the
Schwarzschild metric
In Einstein's theory of general relativity, the Schwarzschild metric (also known as the Schwarzschild solution) is an
exact solution to the Einstein field equations that describes the gravitational field outside a spherical mass, on the assumpti ...
about a month after Einstein published his general theory of relativity. This was the first solution to the Einstein field equations other than the trivial flat space solution.
* 1916 –
Albert Einstein shows that the field equations of general relativity admit wavelike solutions
* 1918 –
Josef Lense and
Hans Thirring find the gravitomagnetic precession of
gyroscope
A gyroscope (from Ancient Greek γῦρος ''gŷros'', "round" and σκοπέω ''skopéō'', "to look") is a device used for measuring or maintaining orientation and angular velocity. It is a spinning wheel or disc in which the axis of rota ...
s in the equations of general relativity
* 1919 –
Arthur Eddington
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the lumin ...
leads a
solar eclipse expedition which claims to detect gravitational deflection of light by the Sun
* 1921 –
Theodor Kaluza demonstrates that a five-dimensional version of Einstein's equations unifies
gravitation
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...
and
electromagnetism
* 1937 –
Fritz Zwicky states that
galaxies
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...
could act as
gravitational lenses
* 1937 – Albert Einstein,
Leopold Infeld, and
Banesh Hoffmann show that the geodesic equations of general relativity can be deduced from its field equations
1950s
* 1953 –
P. C. Vaidya Newtonian time in general relativity, Nature, 171, p260.
* 1956 –
John Lighton Synge publishes the first relativity text emphasizing
spacetime diagrams and
geometrical methods,
* 1957 –
Felix A. E. Pirani uses
Petrov classification
In differential geometry and theoretical physics, the Petrov classification (also known as Petrov–Pirani–Penrose classification) describes the possible algebraic symmetries of the Weyl tensor at each event in a Lorentzian manifold.
It is ...
to understand
gravitational radiation
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...
,
* 1957 –
Richard Feynman introduces
sticky bead argument,
* 1957 –
John Wheeler discusses the breakdown of classical general relativity near
singularities and the need for
quantum gravity
Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...
* 1959 –
Pound–Rebka experiment, first precision test of gravitational redshift,
* 1959 – Lluís Bel introduces
Bel–Robinson tensor and the
Bel decomposition of the
Riemann tensor,
* 1959 –
Arthur Komar introduces the
Komar mass,
* 1959 –
Richard Arnowitt
Richard Lewis Arnowitt (May 3, 1928 – June 12, 2014) was an American physicist known for his contributions to theoretical particle physics and to general relativity.
Arnowitt was a Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) at Texas A&M University, whe ...
,
Stanley Deser
Stanley Deser (born 1931) is an American physicist known for his contributions to general relativity. Currently, he is emeritus Ancell Professor of Physics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts and a senior research associate at Califo ...
and
Charles W. Misner developed
ADM formalism
The ADM formalism (named for its authors Richard Arnowitt, Stanley Deser and Charles W. Misner) is a Hamiltonian formulation of general relativity that plays an important role in canonical quantum gravity and numerical relativity. It was fir ...
.
1960s
* 1960 –
Martin Kruskal and
George Szekeres independently introduce the
Kruskal–Szekeres coordinates for the
Schwarzschild vacuum
In Einstein's theory of general relativity, the Schwarzschild metric (also known as the Schwarzschild solution) is an
exact solution to the Einstein field equations that describes the gravitational field outside a spherical mass, on the assump ...
,
* 1960 –
Shapiro effect
The Shapiro time delay effect, or gravitational time delay effect, is one of the four classic solar-system tests of general relativity. Radar signals passing near a massive object take slightly longer to travel to a target and longer to return tha ...
confirmed,
* 1960 – Thomas Matthews and
Allan R. Sandage
Allan Rex Sandage (June 18, 1926 – November 13, 2010) was an American astronomer. He was Staff Member Emeritus with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. He determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble consta ...
associate
3C 48
3C48 is a quasar discovered in 1960; it was the second source conclusively identified as such.
3C48 was the first source in the Third Cambridge Catalogue of Radio Sources for which an optical identification was found by Allan Sandage and Thomas A ...
with a point-like optical image, show radio source can be at most 15 light minutes in diameter,
* 1960 –
Carl H. Brans
Carl Henry Brans (; born December 13, 1935) is an American mathematical physicist best known for his research into the theoretical underpinnings of gravitation elucidated in his most widely publicized work, the Brans–Dicke theory.
Biography
...
and
Robert H. Dicke
Robert Henry Dicke (; May 6, 1916 – March 4, 1997) was an American astronomer and physicist who made important contributions to the fields of astrophysics, atomic physics, physical cosmology, cosmology and gravity. He was the Albert Einstein ...
introduce
Brans–Dicke theory, the first viable alternative theory with a clear physical motivation,
* 1960 –
Ivor M. Robinson and
Andrzej Trautman
Andrzej Mariusz Trautman (born January 4, 1933 in Warsaw) is a Polish mathematical physicist who has made contributions to classical gravitation in general and to general relativity in particular.
He made contributions to gravitation as early as ...
discover the Robinson-Trautman
null dust solution In mathematical physics, a null dust solution (sometimes called a null fluid) is a Lorentzian manifold in which the Einstein tensor is null. Such a spacetime can be interpreted as an exact solution of Einstein's field equation, in which the only ...
* 1961 –
Pascual Jordan and
Jürgen Ehlers develop the ''kinematic decomposition'' of a
timelike congruence,
* 1960 –
Robert Pound and
Glen Rebka test the gravitational redshift predicted by the equivalence principle to approximately 1%
* 1962 –
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...
and
Ezra T. Newman introduce the
Newman–Penrose formalism,
* 1962 – Ehlers and
Wolfgang Kundt
Wolfgang Kundt (born 3 June 1931 in Hamburg) is a German astrophysicist. He studied Theoretical Physics in Hamburg, centered on general relativity, and got his diploma in 1956 and his PhD in 1959, advised by Pascual Jordan.
With Jürgen Ehlers ...
classify the symmetries of
Pp-wave spacetimes
In general relativity, the pp-wave spacetimes, or pp-waves for short, are an important family of exact solutions of Einstein's field equation. The term ''pp'' stands for ''plane-fronted waves with parallel propagation'', and was introduced in 19 ...
,
* 1962: –
Joshua Goldberg and
Rainer K. Sachs
Rainer Kurt "Ray" Sachs (born June 13, 1932) is a German-American mathematical physicist, with interests in general relativistic cosmology and astrophysics, as well as a computational radiation biologist. He is professor emeritus of Mathematics an ...
prove the
Goldberg–Sachs theorem,
* 1962 – Ehlers introduces
Ehlers transformations, a new
solution generating method,
* 1962 –
Cornelius Lanczos introduces the
Lanczos potential for the
Weyl tensor
In differential geometry, the Weyl curvature tensor, named after Hermann Weyl, is a measure of the curvature of spacetime or, more generally, a pseudo-Riemannian manifold. Like the Riemann curvature tensor, the Weyl tensor expresses the tidal forc ...
,
* 1962 –
Richard Arnowitt
Richard Lewis Arnowitt (May 3, 1928 – June 12, 2014) was an American physicist known for his contributions to theoretical particle physics and to general relativity.
Arnowitt was a Distinguished Professor (Emeritus) at Texas A&M University, whe ...
,
Stanley Deser
Stanley Deser (born 1931) is an American physicist known for his contributions to general relativity. Currently, he is emeritus Ancell Professor of Physics at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts and a senior research associate at Califo ...
, and
Charles W. Misner introduce the
ADM reformulation and
global hyperbolicity,
* 1962 –
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat on Cauchy problem and global hyperbolicity,
* 1962 – Istvan Ozsvath and
Englbert Schücking rediscover the
circularly polarized monochromomatic gravitational wave,
* 1962 –
Hans Adolph Buchdahl
Hans Adolf Buchdahl (7 July 1919 – 7 January 2010) was a German-born Australian physicist. He contributed to general relativity, thermodynamics and optics.
He is particularly known for developing f(R) gravity and Buchdahl's theorem on the S ...
discovers
Buchdahl's theorem
In general relativity, Buchdahl's theorem, named after Hans Adolf Buchdahl, makes more precise the notion that there is a maximal sustainable density for ordinary gravitating matter. It gives an inequality between the mass and radius that must b ...
,
* 1962 –
Hermann Bondi introduces
Bondi mass
The concept of mass in general relativity (GR) is more subtle to define than the concept of mass in special relativity. In fact, general relativity does not offer a single definition of the term mass, but offers several different definitions that ...
,
* 1962 –
Robert Dicke,
Peter Roll, and
R. Krotkov use a torsion fiber balance to test the weak equivalence principle to 2 parts in 100 billion,
* 1962 -
Hermann Bondi, M. G. van der Burg, A. W. Metzner, and
Rainer K. Sachs
Rainer Kurt "Ray" Sachs (born June 13, 1932) is a German-American mathematical physicist, with interests in general relativistic cosmology and astrophysics, as well as a computational radiation biologist. He is professor emeritus of Mathematics an ...
introduce the
asymptotic symmetry group of
asymptotically flat, Lorentzian spacetimes at null (''i.e.'', light-like) infinity.
* 1963 –
Roy Kerr discovers the
Kerr vacuum solution of
Einstein's field equations,
* 1963 – Redshifts of
3C 273
3C 273 is a quasar located in the constellation of Virgo (constellation), Virgo. It was the first quasar ever to be identified.
It is the optically brightest quasar in the sky from Earth (apparent magnitude, m ~12.9), and one of the closest with ...
and other quasars show they are very distant; hence very luminous,
* 1963 – Newman, T. Unti and L.A. Tamburino introduce the
NUT vacuum solution,
* 1963 –
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...
introduces
Penrose diagrams and
Penrose limits,
* 1963 – First
Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics held in Dallas, 16–18 December,
* 1964 – R. W. Sharp and Misner introduce the
Misner–Sharp mass,
* 1964 –
M. A. Melvin discovers the
Melvin electrovacuum solution (aka the ''Melvin magnetic universe''),
* 1964 –
Irwin Shapiro
Irwin Ira Shapiro is an American astrophysicist and Timken University Professor at Harvard University. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1982.
He was the director of the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian from 1982 to 20 ...
predicts a
gravitational time delay of radiation travel as a test of general relativity
* 1965 – Roger Penrose proves first of the
singularity theorems
Singularity or singular point may refer to:
Science, technology, and mathematics Mathematics
* Mathematical singularity, a point at which a given mathematical object is not defined or not "well-behaved", for example infinite or not differentiab ...
,
* 1965 – Newman and others discover the Kerr–Newman electrovacuum solution,
* 1965 – Penrose discovers the structure of the light cones in
gravitational plane wave spacetimes,
* 1965 – Kerr and
Alfred Schild introduce
Kerr-Schild spacetime,
* 1965 –
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "... ...
determines a stability criterion,
* 1965 –
Arno Penzias and
Robert Wilson discover the
cosmic microwave background radiation,
* 1965 –
Joseph Weber puts the first Weber bar
gravitational wave
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...
detector into operation
* 1966 – Sachs and
Ronald Kantowski
Ronald Kantowski (18 December 1939) is a theoretical cosmologist, well known in the field of general relativity as the author, together with Rainer K. Sachs, of the Kantowski–Sachs dust solutions to the Einstein field equation. These are a widel ...
discover the
Kantowski-Sachs dust solution,
* 1967 –
Jocelyn Bell and
Antony Hewish
Antony Hewish (11 May 1924 – 13 September 2021) was a British radio astronomer who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974 (together with fellow radio-astronomer Martin Ryle) for his role in the discovery of pulsars. He was also awarded the ...
discover
pulsars,
* 1967 –
Robert H. Boyer and
R. W. Lindquist introduce
Boyer–Lindquist coordinates for the Kerr vacuum,
* 1967 –
Bryce DeWitt publishes on canonical
quantum gravity
Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...
,
* 1967 –
Werner Israel proves the
no-hair theorem,
* 1967 –
Kenneth Nordtvedt
Kenneth Leon Nordtvedt is an American physicist. He was born on April 16, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois. Nordtvedt graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960) and Stanford University (Ph.D., 1964) and was a junior fellow in the ...
develops
PPN formalism,
* 1967 –
Mendel Sachs
Mendel Sachs (; April 13, 1927 – May 5, 2012) was an American theoretical physicist. His scientific work includes the proposal of a unified field theory that brings together the weak force, strong force, electromagnetism, and gravity.
Biography ...
publishes factorization of Einstein's field equations,
* 1967 –
Hans Stephani discovers the
Stephani dust solution,
* 1968 –
F. J. Ernst discovers the
Ernst equation,
* 1968 –
B. Kent Harrison discovers the
Harrison transformation, a solution-generating method,
* 1968 –
Brandon Carter solves the geodesic equations for Kerr–Newmann electrovacuum,
* 1968 –
Hugo D. Wahlquist discovers the
Wahlquist fluid
In general relativity, the Wahlquist fluid is an exact rotating perfect fluid solution to Einstein's equation with equation of state corresponding to constant gravitational mass density.
Introduction
The Wahlquist fluid was first discovered by ...
,
* 1968 – Irwin Shapiro presents the first detection of the Shapiro delay
* 1968 –
Kenneth Nordtvedt
Kenneth Leon Nordtvedt is an American physicist. He was born on April 16, 1939, in Chicago, Illinois. Nordtvedt graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1960) and Stanford University (Ph.D., 1964) and was a junior fellow in the ...
studies a possible violation of the weak equivalence principle for self-gravitating bodies and proposes a new test of the weak equivalence principle based on observing the relative motion of the Earth and Moon in the Sun's gravitational field
* 1969 –
William B. Bonnor
William Bowen Bonnor (9 September 1920 – 17 August 2015) was a mathematician and gravitation physicist best known for his research into astrophysics, cosmology and general relativity. For most of his academic career he was a professor ...
introduces the
Bonnor beam In general relativity, the Bonnor beam is an exact solution which models an infinitely long, straight beam of light. It is an explicit example of a pp-wave spacetime. It is named after William B. Bonnor who first described it.
The Bonnor beam is ...
,
* 1969 –
Joseph Weber reports observation of
gravitational waves (a claim now generally discounted),
* 1969 – Penrose proposes the (weak)
cosmic censorship hypothesis and the
Penrose process,
* 1969 –
Stephen W. Hawking proves area theorem for black holes,
* 1969 – Misner introduces the
mixmaster universe
Mixmaster may refer to:
Equipment and technology
* Sunbeam Mixmaster, an electric kitchen mixer that was the flagship product of Sunbeam Products
** Mix Diskerud, United States professional soccer player nicknamed after the mixer
* Mixmaster anony ...
,
1970s
* 1970 –
Frank J. Zerilli derives the
Zerilli equation,
* 1970 –
Vladimir A. Belinskiǐ,
Isaak Markovich Khalatnikov, and
Evgeny Lifshitz introduce the
BKL conjecture,
* 1970 – Chandrasekhar pushes on to 5/2 post-Newtonian order,
* 1970 – Hawking and Penrose prove trapped surfaces must arise in black holes,
* 1970 – the
Kinnersley-Walker photon rocket,
* 1970 –
Peter Szekeres introduces
colliding plane waves,
* 1971 –
Peter C. Aichelburg
Peter C. Aichelburg (born 9 November 1941) is an Austrian physicist known for his contributions to general relativity, particularly for his joint work with Roman Sexl on the Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost of the Schwarzschild vacuum.
Life
Pete ...
and
Roman U. Sexl Roman Ulrich Sexl (19 October 1939 – 10 July 1986) was one of the leading Austrian theoretical physicists. He is famous for his textbooks on Special relativity.
Life
His most cited work is "On the gravitational field of a massless particle" to ...
introduce the
Aichelburg–Sexl ultraboost,
* 1971 – Introduction of the
Khan–Penrose vacuum, a simple explicit colliding plane wave spacetime,
* 1971 –
Robert H. Gowdy introduces the
Gowdy vacuum solutions (cosmological models containing circulating gravitational waves),
* 1971 –
Cygnus X-1, the first solid black hole candidate, discovered by
Uhuru satellite,
* 1971 –
William H. Press
William Henry Press (born May 23, 1948) is an astrophysicist, theoretical physicist, computer scientist, and computational biologist. He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the ...
discovers black hole ringing by
numerical simulation,
* 1971 – Harrison and Estabrook algorithm for solving systems of PDEs,
* 1971 –
James W. York introduces
conformal method generating initial data for ADM initial value formulation,
* 1971 –
Robert Geroch
Robert Geroch (born 1 June 1942 in Akron, Ohio) is an American theoretical physicist and professor at the University of Chicago. He has worked prominently on general relativity and mathematical physics and has promoted the use of category theo ...
introduces
Geroch group and a
solution generating method,
* 1972 –
Jacob Bekenstein proposes that black holes have a non-decreasing
entropy which can be identified with the area,
* 1972 – Carter, Hawking and
James M. Bardeen
James Maxwell Bardeen (May 9, 1939 – June 20, 2022) was an American physicist, well known for his work in general relativity, particularly his role in formulating the laws of black hole mechanics. He also discovered the Bardeen vacuum, an ...
propose the four
laws of black hole mechanics,
* 1972 – Sachs introduces
optical scalars In general relativity, optical scalars refer to a set of three scalar functions \ describing the propagation of a geodesic null congruence.Eric Poisson. ''A Relativist's Toolkit: The Mathematics of Black-Hole Mechanics''. Cambridge: Cambridge Unive ...
and proves
peeling theorem,
* 1972 –
Rainer Weiss proposes concept of interferometric gravitational wave detector,
* 1972 – J. C. Hafele and R. E. Keating perform
Hafele–Keating experiment,
* 1972 –
Richard H. Price studies
gravitational collapse
Gravitational collapse is the contraction of an astronomical object due to the influence of its own gravity, which tends to draw matter inward toward the center of gravity. Gravitational collapse is a fundamental mechanism for structure formatio ...
with numerical simulations,
* 1972 –
Saul Teukolsky derives the
Teukolsky equation,
* 1972 –
Yakov B. Zel'dovich
Yakov Borisovich Zeldovich ( be, Я́каў Бары́савіч Зяльдо́віч, russian: Я́ков Бори́сович Зельдо́вич; 8 March 1914 – 2 December 1987), also known as YaB, was a leading Soviet physicist of Bel ...
predicts the transmutation of electromagnetic and gravitational radiation,
* 1973 – P. C. Vaidya and L. K. Patel introduce the
Kerr–Vaidya null dust solution,
* 1973 – Publication by
Charles W. Misner,
Kip S. Thorne
Kip Stephen Thorne (born June 1, 1940) is an American theoretical physics, theoretical physicist known for his contributions in gravitation, gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl ...
and
John A. Wheeler of the treatise ''
Gravitation
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...
'', the first modern textbook on general relativity,
* 1973 – Publication by
Stephen W. Hawking and
George Ellis of the monograph ''
The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time'',
* 1973 – Geroch introduces the
GHP formalism The GHP formalism (or Geroch–Held–Penrose formalism) is a technique used in the mathematics of general relativity that involves singling out a pair of null directions at each point of spacetime. It is a rewriting of the Newman–Penrose formalis ...
,
* 1974 –
Russell Hulse and
Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr.
Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. (born March 29, 1941) is an American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the stud ...
discover the
Hulse–Taylor binary pulsar,
* 1974 –
James W. York and Niall Ó Murchadha present the analysis of the initial value formulation and examine the stability of its solutions,
* 1974 – R. O. Hansen introduces
Hansen–Geroch multipole moments,
* 1974: –
Tullio Regge introduces the
Regge calculus,
* 1974 – Hawking discovers
Hawking radiation,
* 1975 – Chandrasekhar and
Steven Detweiler compute
quasinormal modes,
* 1975 – Szekeres and D. A. Szafron discover the
Szekeres–Szafron dust solutions,
* 1976 – Penrose introduces
Penrose limits (every null geodesic in a Lorentzian spacetime behaves like a plane wave),
* 1976 –
Gravity Probe A experiment confirmed slowing the flow of time caused by gravity matching the predicted effects to an accuracy of about 70 parts per million.
* 1976 –
Robert Vessot and
Martin Levine use a
hydrogen maser clock on a
Scout D rocket to test the gravitational redshift predicted by the equivalence principle to approximately 0.007%
* 1978 – Penrose introduces the notion of a ''thunderbolt'',
* 1978 – Belinskiǐ and Zakharov show how to solve
Einstein's field equations using the
inverse scattering transform; the first
gravitational solitons,
* 1979 –
Richard Schoen and
Shing-Tung Yau prove the
positive mass theorem
The positive energy theorem (also known as the positive mass theorem) refers to a collection of foundational results in general relativity and differential geometry. Its standard form, broadly speaking, asserts that the gravitational energy of an ...
.
* 1979 –
Dennis Walsh,
Robert Carswell Robert Carswell may refer to:
* Robert Carswell, Baron Carswell (1934–2023), British law lord
* Robert Carswell (cricketer) (born 1936), New Zealand cricketer
* Robert Carswell (MP) for Wallingford (UK Parliament constituency)
* Robert Carswell ...
, and
Ray Weymann discover the gravitationally lensed
quasar
A quasar is an extremely Luminosity, luminous active galactic nucleus (AGN). It is pronounced , and sometimes known as a quasi-stellar object, abbreviated QSO. This emission from a galaxy nucleus is powered by a supermassive black hole with a m ...
Q0957+561
The Twin Quasar (also known as Twin QSO, Double Quasar, SBS 0957+561, TXS 0957+561, Q0957+561 or QSO 0957+561 A/B), was discovered in 1979 and was the first identified gravitationally lensed object. It is a quasar that appears as two images, a r ...
1980s
* 1982 –
Joseph Taylor and
Joel Weisberg Joel or Yoel is a name meaning "Yahweh Is God" and may refer to:
* Joel (given name), origin of the name including a list of people with the first name.
* Joel (surname), a surname
* Joel (footballer, born 1904), Joel de Oliveira Monteiro, Brazili ...
show that the rate of energy loss from the binary
pulsar
A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...
PSR B1913+16 agrees with that predicted by the general relativistic quadrupole formula to within 5%
2000s
* 2002 – First data collection of the
Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO).
* 2005 – The first
stable numerical solutions of a binary black hole orbit are calculated independently by three different research groups.
* 2007 – End of
Gravity Probe B experiment.
* 2015 – Advanced
LIGO reports the first direct detections of gravitational waves (
GW150914 and
GW151226).
* 2017 – Advanced
LIGO and
Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope constrain the speed of gravity to 1 part in
of the speed of light with
GW170817.
* 2019 – The
Event Horizon Telescope images the shadow of
supermassive black hole M87*
Messier 87 (also known as Virgo A or NGC 4486, generally abbreviated to M87) is a supergiant elliptical galaxy with several trillion stars in the constellation Virgo. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local uni ...
* 2022 - The
James Webb Space Telescope
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope which conducts infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in space, its high resolution and sensitivity allow it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Spa ...
publishes its
first image, showing gravitational lensing by the
SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster.
See also
*
Timeline of black hole physics
*
Timeline of special relativity and the speed of light
This timeline describes the major developments, both experimental and theoretical, of:
* Einstein’s special theory of relativity (SR),
* its predecessors like the theories of luminiferous aether,
* its early competitors, i.e.:
** Ritz’s b ...
References
External links
Timeline of relativity and gravitation(Tomohiro Harada, Department of Physics, Rikkyo University)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Timeline Of Gravitational Physics And Relativity
Astrophysics
Gravity
Gravitational physics and relativity