Do Not Be Silenced: Relativistic Classical Field Theories

Relativistic Classical Field Theories

Sam: Let’s do our project on hobos!

Carly: What do hobos have to do with science?

Sam: Aren’t they affected by gravity or something? (iCarly)

One of the most generic science subjects is gravity. And it’s not just a song from the musical ‘Wicked’ or a song by Sara Bareilles. It relates to everything we do on Earth so it’s no wonder it’s talked about commonly in the scientific world. It’s responsible for the formation of the tides and keeping the planets to remain intact. Gravity is one of the four fundamental interactions, meaning the ways that particles interact with one another, along with electromagnetism, strong interaction and weak interaction.

When most people hear the name Newton they imagine a boy sitting under an apple tree while an apple falls to the ground giving the boy a sudden “light bulb” thought and thus gravity came into the minds of humans. But in all actuality, the theory of gravity began with Galileo Galilei’s work in the late 1500’s and early 1600’s with his experiment in having balls fall from the Tower of Pisa until it hit the ground and measured how far they rolled down slopes. His experiment showed things that were very contrary to what Aristotle believed that objects with more weight accelerate faster. Then later, a short while after Galileo died, Isaac Newton expanded on his research using his own thoughts about the universe and his knowledge of mathematics. His theory consisted of the thought that an object with more mass exerted a greater force and pulled smaller objects, with less mass, toward it. From there Newton’s mind just kept going forward with the ideas. What if gravity reached out into space? What held up the orbits of the planets? With calculations and thought Sir Isaac Newton came up with ideas that changed the way people looked at the universe and understood it.

So how gravity works is entirely different than just the history of it. It is common knowledge now that Newton defined gravity as a force and Albert Einstein concluding that gravity is due to the curvature of space-time (space-time being a single continuum that combines space and time). The more mass in an object, the more space around the object is warped. That’s why planets and the Earth can have things “fall into their orbit”. They go into a little dimple made by their massive matter and that’s why all of them stay in their proper place in orbit. This is all a part of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

Believe it or not, there are alternatives to the general relativity theory. From the candid theories that just throw it out the opposing, such as Brans-Dicke theory, to the other theories that try to unite gravity with other forces, like the Kaluza-Klein theory, there are many that don’t believe simply in what Einstein had configured. Their rival ideas consist of adding to the general relativistic classical field theory and adding a scalar field. Although most people now only know of the most famous theory by Einstein, the other propositions for how the universe works are starting to get more and more credit.

Gravity is entwined into our everyday lives. From the moon at night, to running laps during the day, gravity plays a big part in all of lives. And no matter what theory we put our beliefs in, the truth that some sort of force, pull, or field keeps everything in line has been there and will be there for as long as we all can guess.