Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity | Lecture 9

by John on December 26, 2011

Lecture 9 of Leonard Susskind’s Modern Physics concentrating on General Relativity. Recorded November 17, 2008 at Stanford University. This Stanford Continuing Studies course is the fourth of a six-quarter sequence of classes exploring the essential theoretical foundations of modern physics. The topics covered in this course focus on classical mechanics. Leonard Susskind is the Felix Bloch Professor of Physics at Stanford University. Stanford Continuing Studies: continuingstudies.stanford.edu About Leonard Susskind: www.stanford.edu Stanford University Channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com
Video Rating: 4 / 5

View “Beyond Einstein: Part I” at: youtube.com Want more? Subscribe to NASA on iTunes! phobos.apple.com Albert Einstein’s theories rank among humanity’s greatest achievements. They sparked the scientific revolution of the 20th Century. In their attempts to understand how space, time and matter are connected, Einstein and his successors made three predictions… First, that space is expanding from a Big Bang. Second, that black holes exist — these extremely dense places in the universe where space and time are tied into contorted knots and where time itself — stops. And third, that there is some kind of energy pulling the universe apart. These three predictions seemed so far-fetched, that everyone, including Einstein himself, thought they were unlikely. Incredibly, all three have turned out to be true. This is where NASA’s Beyond Einstein program begins. Using advanced space-based technology to explore these three questions, NASA and its partners begin the next revolution in our understanding of the universe. NASA’s Beyond Einstein program is poised to complete Einstein’s legacy — and ultimately unravel the mysteries of the Universe. For more information visit: universe.nasa.gov
Video Rating: 4 / 5

{ 50 comments }

grunder20 December 26, 2011 at 4:31 am

Informative and very catchy. Great job on posting this video.

adelle0001 December 26, 2011 at 5:04 am

nice one! very informative

grunder20 December 26, 2011 at 5:28 am

I am mind blowed.

agapitoflores001 December 26, 2011 at 6:03 am

Einstein is a real genius, isn’t he? I wanna try being like him.. haha

calebp9503 December 26, 2011 at 6:16 am

his mathematical notes are kind of lazy, and unorganized, but he still gets his point across. i would prefer to see the theory presented with more structured mathematical notes

csmcmillion December 26, 2011 at 6:36 am

@fermista It’s the other way around.

fibonacci112358s December 26, 2011 at 7:04 am

@newtonswig

HAHA!!!!

Indeed… the learning curve is getting a bit steep here. I’m still trying to get my head around gravity waves…

fermista December 26, 2011 at 7:45 am

@LeMegasandwich I personally think the most profound conclusion about physics is that because nature can be described in terms of mathematical equations, nature behaves logically.

newtonswig December 26, 2011 at 8:23 am

@TSP105 For reasons that refuse to make themselves clear, I plotted the views against lecture number on a graph. It actually pretty closely follows an inverse square law. Spooky…..

lavernedi December 26, 2011 at 8:32 am

True Free energy devices exist,But a few ppl make too many billions from our energy needs to let this technology be known,Get the blueprints for a free energy motor at LT-MAGNET-MOTORdotCOM ,Free yourself!

LeMegasandwich December 26, 2011 at 9:07 am

@mixtape24 So how does: “logical laws” “”"govern”"” the universe, probably nothing else in our empirical experience. Not a language created by humans.
sound to you:)?

mixtape24 December 26, 2011 at 9:54 am

@LeMegasandwich

math gives us the right answers :) to say it governs the universe is a bit of a leap. math is just a language like anything else and it is useful to describe how things already are, not the other way around

TSP105 December 26, 2011 at 10:18 am

From around a quarter of a million views for lecture 1, ee’re down to just under 13,000 for this.

estaere December 26, 2011 at 10:52 am

@LeMegasandwich It’s rather methodological issue. [What is Law of Nature? by D. Armstrong] if you want 2 be confused ;)

LeMegasandwich December 26, 2011 at 11:46 am

@estaere I would call them the same thing. Nature is how the universe works. How the universe works are with these equations. :)

estaere December 26, 2011 at 12:04 pm

@LeMegasandwich are they govern or are governed by the nature? I think this is the issue.

LeMegasandwich December 26, 2011 at 1:00 pm

@estaere It’s strange how mathematical equations govern the universe yet so many people argue about it!

estaere December 26, 2011 at 1:19 pm

Awesomeness of mathematical equations is that they’re independent of fashon, political point of view or even religion you follow.

Einstein had right. His formulas are immortal.

The only difficult is to identify them.

Correct me if I’m wrong…

LeMegasandwich December 26, 2011 at 2:05 pm

I graphed it. It drops by 4/5ths after the first video and this video is just 6.7% of original viewers!

elliottc2001 December 26, 2011 at 2:10 pm

he’s great this has been awesome

foketesz December 26, 2011 at 2:52 pm

well said

foketesz December 26, 2011 at 3:10 pm

AND the number of viewers…

ShootBigBird December 26, 2011 at 3:19 pm

I notice the number of posters is thinning out as we progress…LOL

ogirv101 December 26, 2011 at 3:44 pm

I noticed that on the playlist the lecture order is wrong, just wanted to point that out.

Lambda45 December 26, 2011 at 4:32 pm

Leonard and Stanford, you did a great service to physics by putting these lectures online. Please upload the whole course as soon as you can! I have been checking almost everyday for lecture 10 and I know many others are eagerly waiting as well.
Thanks again for a great job. Leonard’s clarity of thinking and of explaining somewhat difficult concepts is outstanding!

CostaDelBarto December 26, 2011 at 5:18 pm

@prscomp Nope. Mayans did not have tensor calculus.

prscomp December 26, 2011 at 6:08 pm

@900BiscayneBayCondos Please, the Mayans knew about way before Einstein.

BrockTheRockTv December 26, 2011 at 6:48 pm

@nicwebana your stupid

tyga42 December 26, 2011 at 6:54 pm

so the otherside becomes a star past the event horizon, and all the matter being sucked in is then compressed and forms at the closest star.. which then unifies all the other principles about how each galaxy remains seperate but linear if each star in universe corrisponds, im sorry but you did try this before and the readings were inconclusive as the probe was crushed and destroyed and the signal was lost, in fact everytime you have done this it’s failed, im not crazy we stuck in temporal paradi

EveryoneIsBoring December 26, 2011 at 7:27 pm

I learned nothing at all.
But i kept hearing again and again the questions i came here to solve.

gvsfgdf December 26, 2011 at 7:57 pm

@davyro66 oh read it now LOL my bad

davyro66 December 26, 2011 at 8:20 pm

@gvsfgdf i don’t think you’ve read my comment properly if you had done you wouldn’t have wrote your comment lolollol

gvsfgdf December 26, 2011 at 9:10 pm

@davyro66 Electricity IS a study in physics lol

nicwebana December 26, 2011 at 9:20 pm

i believe it was stephen hawking that said what causes a black hole was the implosion of a star or planet…… 

atlzfinest4life December 26, 2011 at 9:23 pm

@hitokiri657
…and einstein rose above them ALL

hitokiri657 December 26, 2011 at 10:02 pm

@davyro66 It is, but to make discoveries you need to internalize your area of specialization and be in years of researching. “Sharing opinions” ,as they guy who i replied stated, was not going to exchange years and years of scrutinizing in their individual areas.

But don’t worry, as math has showed us, nothing is 100% certain, so who knows what might happened. But then again, Einstein was exposed to plenty of brilliant scientists.

davyro66 December 26, 2011 at 10:21 pm

@hitokiri657 Is the study of electricity not physics?

hitokiri657 December 26, 2011 at 10:51 pm

@davyro66 I don’t think it would have mattered much. Tesla’s ideas was inclined to electricity. Einstein was to force and physics.

MrSuicideMan December 26, 2011 at 11:46 pm

I have a teory but its not quite perfect due to actual knowladge of me:

well can the light speed change due to deformations of space(ex: blackhole)?

And since the velocity can me measure with v=deltaX/deltaT when the actuall deltaX is bended and the time is change cuz of the gravitational field will it stay with the same speed? or will it increase with a prespective outside of the black hole gravitational field but still remain the same speed(insde the field (due to the space-time changes) ?

zxhthinker December 26, 2011 at 11:57 pm

Who can help me build the speed of light spacecraft, e-mail me.wmv
The spacecraft can beyond the speed of light.
I tell you the secrets of electricity and magnetism, you help me build the spacecraft.
Seek cooperation the global.
—-Xuhui

MichaelMellijor December 27, 2011 at 12:23 am

@davyro66 i would disagree with that. perhaps it would be someone else turn to discover this things, and it would be great.

guess777 December 27, 2011 at 12:38 am

alien helped Einstein :)

davyro66 December 27, 2011 at 1:05 am

@johnedwardthomas No they didn’t like each other at all,Tesla used to always question Einstein’s theory of relativity.Tesla always maintained that Einstein had got his equations wrong,obviously Einstein didn’t like this so they used to have big public disagreements.One thing that was for sure though was Tesla understood the Earth’s electro-gravity fields better than anyone & Einstein knew his physics better than anyone,work it out if you can i know its confusing.

johnedwardthomas December 27, 2011 at 1:28 am

@davyro66 didnt they do the manhattan project together?

salehjoon December 27, 2011 at 2:06 am

@Molhedim 80% is an underestimation. More like 99%.

Molhedim December 27, 2011 at 2:10 am

Human race could go so much further ….we can acomplish so much….sadly there are lots of retards in this world …about 80 %.

ProttoyEinstein December 27, 2011 at 2:13 am

Einstein was the greatest scientist world had ever seen! if he couldve lived a little longer he would ve solved the puzzle of grand unification and theory of everything!

blueice8982 December 27, 2011 at 2:41 am

who dislike this kind of documentary lol….. 8 ppl are retarted

Rotorzilla December 27, 2011 at 3:22 am

too bad NASA kicked Lisa to the curb. I was really looking forward to this mission.

4inches4u December 27, 2011 at 3:48 am

@wasdalie yes

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post:

Next post: