Answer the following questions:
1. What force holds
together the hundred billion stars of the Milky Way?
2. How many names are
there in the history of man’s understanding of gravity?
3. Who was the first
to study in detail the process of free and accelerated fall?
4. Who was the first
to have the idea of gravity as a universal force?
5. Whom does the
phrase “I will not feign hypothesis” belong to?
6. What did Newton
offer?
7. What is the definition of gravity according to Einstein?
8. Did Einstein prove “Newton’s
law of gravitation” wrong?
9. What did Einstein offer?
10. Do the changes from Newton’s
predictions to Einstein’s make any difference in laboratory experiments?
11. How did Einstein reduce gravity and what conclusion did he come
into?
12. What theory grew from this conclusion?
13. Did Einstein complete it?
14. What do some scientists claim?
15. What makes this claim unjustified?
16. Which theory (hypothesis) do you favour?
17. Why are you “for” or “against” a particular theory?
18. Are the advanced hypotheses presented in the text building a bridge
from the universe to the microcosm or vice versa?
Text:
Gravity is a force that holds together the
hundred billion stars of the Milky Way. It makes the Earth revolve around the
Sun and the Moon around the Earth. There are three great names in the history
of man's understanding of gravity: Galileo who was the first to study in
detail the process of free and accelerated fall; Newton, the first to have the
idea of gravity as a universal force. However, Newton admitted that he did not know its
ultimate cause ("I will not feign hypothesis") but he offered many a
keen guess at the nature and mechanism of gravitation; and Einstein, who
said that gravity is nothing but the curvature of the four-dimensional
space-time continuum.
In specifying
gravitation on the new geometrical view Einstein did not prove "Newton's law of
gravitation" wrong but offered a refining modification – though this
involved a radical change in viewpoint. We must not think of either law as
right (or wrong) because it is suggested by a great man or because it is
embodied by beautiful maths; we are offered it as a brilliant guess from the
real universe. The changes from Newton's
predictions to Einstein's, though fundamental in nature, are usually too small
in effect to make any difference in laboratory experiments or even in most
astronomical measurements. By reducing gravity to geometrical properties of a space-time
continuum, Einstein concluded that the electromagnetic field must also have
some purely geometrical interpretation. The unified field theory, which
grew from this conclusion had rough going and Einstein died without completing
it. Some scientists claim that it is very odd indeed that the theory of
gravitation originated by Newton
and developed further by Einstein should stand now in majestic isolation,
having nothing to do with the rapid development of other branches of science.
This is not the case, however. The progress in quantum mechanics, modern
cosmology and astrophysics makes this claim unjustified