Talk:General relativity

Short description

@DVdm: The original short description contradicts the article. It reads, "Theory by Albert Einstein, covering gravitation in curved spacetime." In reality, general relativity tells us that gravitation manifests itself as the curvature of spacetime. Again, that's not what the article says. My alternative is correct and does not contradict the article. Nerd271 (talk) 15:42, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

Then I propose "Theory by Albert Einstein, covering gravitation and curved spacetime", or better still, "Theory by Albert Einstein, covering gravitation as curved spacetime". Anyway, my main objection to your proposal was the somewhat accusing tone of the phrase "due to Albert Einstein" , and the re-splitting of the essential concept of "spacetime" into "space and time". - DVdm (talk) 16:18, 22 June 2019 (UTC)

I went ahead. - DVdm (talk) 08:09, 23 June 2019 (UTC)

@DVdm: Thank you! That's much better. The word 'as' is the right one here. I think we should also add the adjective 'scientific' to emphasize the fact that general relativity is not a child of an idle mind or some crazy mathematics on a piece of paper but rather a proper scientific theory supported by mountains of empirical evidence. What do you think? Nerd271 (talk) 02:20, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

I don't think we need that, as the description is already significantly longer than its 40 recommended characters. In order to get closer to 40, perhaps we should amend it to "Einstein's theory of gravitation as curved spacetime".- DVdm (talk) 08:20, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Fair enough. I think your new proposal is even better. Nerd271 (talk) 12:53, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

 Done: [1]. - DVdm (talk) 13:14, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

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refines / supersedes

To a third party observer like me who watches the page, this seems ridiculous (both are true). I suggest to form a consensus here for one or the other instead of constantly switching from one to another... Thanks, —PaleoNeonate – 12:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Well, or for an alternative that conveys more clearly the intended meaning, of course. —PaleoNeonate – 12:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Agreed. My take on it: as Newton's theory is still perfectly valid and useful in the low-gravity-low-speed limit, I think that "refines" is better (—even if perhaps just slightly—) than "supersedes". I don't think we need to worry about how flat-earthers ([2], [3], [4]) might get confused by either alternative here. - DVdm (talk) 13:11, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Likewise. There is no need to pay attention to the people who believe the Earth is flat. Such an idea is untenable even by the standards of 2000 years ago. Nerd271 (talk) 02:16, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

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Books

Shall we create a separate page for the notable books on general relativity at various levels? This article is already long in its current state. We do have pages for lists of textbooks in classical mechanics and quantum mechanics, of thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, and in electromagnetism. Nerd271 (talk) 00:37, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

4D Spacetime: 3D Regular Space + Time

Einstein recognized the 4 dimensions of spacetime: 3D regular space + time. 2601:589:4800:9090:489:97E6:2CC8:D11E (talk) 13:01, 21 August 2020 (UTC)