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Recommended for: Grades 6-12

Resource: Relativity and the Cosmos

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Albert Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which develops from the idea that gravity is equivalent to acceleration, was the first major new theory of gravity since Isaac Newton's. In this media-rich text resource from the NOVA Web site, read why someone might call general relativity "the biggest leap of the scientific imagination in history."

Teachers' Domain, Relativity and the Cosmos, published January 29, 2004, retrieved on ,
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/phy03.sci.phys.fund.relandcosmos/

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In this resource, MIT professor and author (Einstein's Dreams, Good Benito, and Dance for Two) Alan Lightman explains the implications of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. General Relativity predicts, among other things, the bending of starlight by gravity, a slight irregularity in Mercury's orbit, and the existence of black holes.

Because no one else was thinking of gravity in the same terms as he was -- that is, as a geometrical phenomenon and a bending of time and space -- and because experimental results have yet to prove him wrong, Lightman states that Einstein merits the acclaim he has received as a scientist uniquely creative in his time.