The Schwarzschild solution applied to Mercury's orbit

[Bibliotecario]

Título: The Schwarzschild solution applied to Mercury's orbit

Autor(es): Oriol Frigola

Idioma: Inglés

Año: 2013

Nivel: Segundo ciclo

Tipo de contenido: Artículos

Categoría: Relatividad General

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Resumen:

Einstein's theory of General Relativity tries to explain what gravity is, how it is produced, how it behaves and what effects it has. Another theory that had the same purpose was the law of universal gravitation that Newton postulated in 1686. In fact, Einstein’s Theory, applied to situations where gravitational fields are weak and the velocities of the falling objects are not relativistic (much smaller than the speed of light), reproduces Newton’s Law. This elucidates the limitations of Newtonian Theory and at the same time demonstrates that the two theories perfectly agree with each other in regimes where they can both be applied. However, the two theories give very different explanations of what gravity and space-time conceptually are. Newton's approach gives great accuracy in calculations and only the most modern technology may notice the error; due to that general relativity was not noticed and demonstrated experimentally until the late twentieth century. Two of the most known tests are the light deflection observation from stars near the Sun and the precession of the perihelion of Mercury, which will be discussed in this paper.