By Parker G. and Siddhartha J.

Special Relativity:

General Relativity:

In 1907, Einstein began an eight-year search on how to incorporate a relativistic theory of gravity into his special relativity theory of light, space, and time. In succeeding, Einstein described general relativity as follows. General relativity generalizes special relativity and Newton's law of universal gravitation into a single unifying theory of relativity.

            General relativity incorporates space, time and energy into a single fabric of space-time, on which the effects of gravity can be seen as curves and impressions. These curves are created by massive objects, and, in turn, dictate the straight-line motion of these objects, bending there paths of motion along the curves of space time, much like a marble would be bent by a massive object if both were on a trampoline. Paraphrasing the relativist John Archibald Wheeler, space-time tells matter how to move; matter tells space-time how to curve.

             General relativity as an explanation of gravity satisfies a more stringent general principle of relativity than Newtonian gravity at a large scale, mainly that the laws of physics are the same for all observers. This was a very important concept for Einstein in the development of first special relativity, and eventually general relativity. Einstein’s connection between the invariable connections of the laws of physics and the properties of light, time, and space was that the speed of light is a constant, non-varying value and thus a law of physics which cannot be alter if the laws of physics are to be accepted. As aforementioned, this has several wide reaching implications described primarily by special relativity, namely that time and distance is relativity to the frame of reference.

            Specific implications of general relative, as differing from classic models of physics in the universe include gravitational time dilation, gravitational lensing, the gravitational redshift of light, and the gravitational time delay.

            As general relativity combines space and time into a single Cartesian area, the effects of time dilation can be seen  with acceleration across space-time. A good example can be found in this video at 2:40.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=iv&src_vid=G-R8LGy-OVs&v=xvZfx7iwq94&annotation_id=annotation_276544