The Day Gravity and Curvature Met
167
Published 2019-11-18
Abstract: Since ancient times, mathematicians have worked to not only understand the natural world, but also to discover the beauty and harmony inherent in mathematical systems. Studying mathematics without an immediate real-life application, however, can sometimes feel like an obscure endeavor to many people. Every once in a while though, a primarily mathematical adventure holds the key to a major discovery about nature. Such was the case in the early 20th century when the worlds of abstract geometry and gravitational physics collided to unlock the secrets of the structure of the universe. In this talk, we will discuss the mathematical ideas from Euclid to Riemann and the advances in physics from Newton to Maxwell that led Albert Einstein to make a connection between physics and mathematics that changed the way we view the cosmos forever.
Errata: Near the end of the talk on a slide about black holes, I incorrectly credit Karl Schwarzschild with suggesting black holes. Black holes were first suggested and described by Oppenheimer and Snyder in 1939 about 23 years after Schwarzschild's paper. In 1958, however, Finkelstein suggested that the Schwarzschild radius, which comes from Schwarzschild's metric, was an event horizon for a black hole. This is where my confusion about the history here came from. Thanks to Bob Palais for this correction.
Special Thanks:
Bob Palais - for many spirited and informative discussions about the history of general relativity and geometry's role in its inception.
Abraham Pais - for his fantastic biography of Albert Einstein, "Subtle is the Lord...".
Skyler Simmons - for designing and 3D printing the three props that I used.
UVU Fulton Library - for providing the video of my talk
All Comments (3)
-
Daniel sent me, wish you could be my advisor at UNM! Loved the talk, thank you.
-
Seriously... why can't you just teach all my classes?
