Einstein's Universe: Understand Theory of General Relativity 1979 (by Peter Ustinov)

Rare documentary of special relativity, remastered. Just Sharing

A documentary produced in 1979 by WGBH and the BBC to celebrate the centenary of the birth of Albert Einstein. Narrated and hosted by Peter Ustinov and written by Nigel Calder, the author of the accompanying book of the same title, the film takes place at the University of Texas' McDonald Observatory where a staff of renowned scientists and physicists take both Ustinov and the viewer through a hands-on experience of the various facets of Einstein's theory of general relativity.

a reply to: kloejen
Albert Einstein was a brilliant human.Unfortunately, some of his work has been used wrongly to give us the wrong impression of how intelligence can work in the Universe. Carl Sagan was fond of downplaying the UFO phenomena by stating time and time again that, "Yes ETs are out there somewhere, but they cannot get here. The distances are too great even if the ship travel at the speed of light." Most people believe that simply denial.

Einstein stated a simple fact of nature. He could just as easily have said that it is a fact of physics that birds cannot fly, and he would have been correct while birds fly anyway because nature has allowed them to cheat the basics physics.

UFO, alien ships of immense size, cruise the galaxy because they use a method to shield mass, thus, inertia and gravity. In that way, the simple physics of SOL travel are moot to such ships. Thus, why we witness so many different ships and creatures when we were taught to believe we are safely alone.

Virtually every UFO of any sizes, style or configuration we witness is displaying the very signature of that manner of power. Yet it is never publicly recognized as the simple process that it is.

Ah, the chestnut rises again. Einstein's theory of relativity, Darwin's theory of Evolution!!! These are THEORIES. Theories are not FACT. A theory is only a best guess with the available data and are only to be believed till some one else comes along to disprove the theory with more better "reasons". Just because , up till yet, no one has disproved Einstein's theory does not make it fact. But I think the scientific establishment take it as fact (like this video, Einstein worship) therefore don't seriously bother to look at other options. Peer review anyone. Baaah.

That’s the scientific method. It is supposed to keep the bastards honest, until peeps stop investigating and the ‘science becomes settled’.

Which in effect means dead. Scientific enquiry should be a living cycle, of theory and rebuttal.

a reply to: crayzeed

originally posted by: Dalamax
That’s the scientific method. It is supposed to keep the bastards honest, until peeps stop investigating and the ‘science becomes settled’.

Which in effect means dead. Scientific enquiry should be a living cycle, of theory and rebuttal.

a reply to: crayzeed

You seem out of touch to make a post like that in a relativity thread, implying relativity isn't being constantly tested. Relativity is constantly being subjected to ever more rigorous tests. Here's an article from late last year about a test of relativity on the MICROSCOPE mission:

Einstein’s Greatest Theory Just Passed Its Most Rigorous Test Yet

Here's an article published today on a 16 year long research project to test relativity:
Einstein Proven Right Yet Again: Theory of General Relativity Passes a Range of Precise Tests

An international team of researchers from ten countries led by Michael Kramer from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, has conducted a 16-year long experiment to challenge Einstein’s theory of general relativity with some of the most rigorous tests yet. Their study of a unique pair of extreme stars, so called pulsars, involved seven radio telescopes across the globe and revealed new relativistic effects that were expected and have now been observed for the first time. Einstein’s theory, which was conceived when neither these types of extreme stars nor the techniques used to study them could be imagined, agrees with the observation at a level of at least 99.99%.

The comments in this thread saying no theory is ever proven 100% is true, but that's a good thing, that's how science works. If any of these ongoing tests of relativity showed a discrepancy, then we would have to figure out why, and we might need a new or revised theory. But so far, that hasn't happened, and experiments to test relativity shows it agrees with observation to a high degree.

a reply to: kloejen
Thanks for posting the documentary. I didn't have 2 hours to watch it but I suspect I will find the time to watch it at some point. I did skim through some bits and it looks interesting, though dated. Some of the tests being performed on relativity now couldn't have been conceived back in 1979 when that documentary was made, like the article published today about the 16 year long test of relativity.

Yeah relativity is constantly being tested. People on this site constantly appear to have the wrong idea about scientists. We actually LOVE to be proven wrong, largely because it is more interesting because it means there is something about an idea that is either missing or incomplete.

Also the greatest scientific discoveries made in history have all been people proving things wrong, not right.

I think one of the fun ones as a test for example is observing a star as it passes into and out of the gravitational well of a super massive black hole. Observing how its color shifts depending on how close it is.

Awesome test of GR which... yeah... showed predictions of GR were bang on.

a reply to: kloejen

Thanks for posting. The speech is slow, so I could play it back at 1.75 speed and get through it all in something close to an hour. It was good to see Shapiro describe his tests.

It was interesting to see how little has changed in so many years. Some things have changed of course, as observations have exploded, and now the belief is in an accelerating universe expansion. But most things remain.

It was again brought strongly home, although it is by no means new, that setting relativity aside will be extremely difficult. So much theory is built upon relativity. And there is near unanimity in the belief that the theory is correct. That time and space are a four-dimensional space-time and that mass bends space and that black holes exist are things so deeply ingrained that it will be very difficult to go back to a conceptually easier paradigm more similar to that of Lorentz.

However at its core relativity is incompatible with quantum mechanics and it also leads to singularities. There was some discussion about these problems toward the end, but I believe the general agreement is that relativity is so successful that it will need modification, not discarding.

In any event, thanks again for the post!

But then you observe the very small and what happens?

Still nice to see that experiments are being conducted. Especially on a global scale

a reply to: Arbitrageur

originally posted by: Dalamax
But then you observe the very small and what happens?

Still nice to see that experiments are being conducted. Especially on a global scale

a reply to: Arbitrageur

The protons and electrons accelerated in particle accelerators are quite small, yet we couldn't accurately calculate the energy of those particles without using Einstein's special theory of relativity. The general theory of relativity isn't as useful at such small scales since other forces such as electromagnetism become much more significant at those scales than gravitational effects.

Einstein also played a role in the development of quantum mechanics, winning the Nobel prize in 1921 for his photoelectric effect paper which dealt with the emission of very small particles called electrons. There are also ongoing experiments in quantum mechanics.

originally posted by: delbertlarson
However at its core relativity is incompatible with quantum mechanics and it also leads to singularities. There was some discussion about these problems toward the end, but I believe the general agreement is that relativity is so successful that it will need modification, not discarding.

Yes, the singularities like black holes probably need a better model than general relativity. Even after we find a better model, GR may end up like Newton's model, which we still use a lot when doing non-relativistic calculations, and Einstein's model simplifies to Newton's model in the limited case, as Einstein put it. So in that sense Newton's model isn't so much wrong, as limited, and Einstein's model may also end up being limited, to use outside of the singularities it doesn't model very well, and hopefully the new model won't have singularities.