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摘要

Albert einstein's contributions to modern physics are unmatched, but his stellar reputation rests above all on a theory he presented to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin in a series of lectures in November 1915. The general theory of relativity is at its heart a theory of gravity. But in explaining how the force that sculpts large-scale reality works, it revolutionised our world view. Ten years before, in 1905, Einstein had already shown how motion warps space and time. Starting with the assumption baked into James Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic force, formulated 40 years earlier, that light always travels at the same speed, the special theory of relativity demonstrated how two observers in motion relative to each other will not perceive ruler lengths and clock ticks the same way.