广义相对论的产生与发展

HISTORY AND CONGRESS OF GENERAL RELATIVITY

首先简单扼要地评述了相对论（狭义相对论和广义相对论）的历史背景,指出它是物理学发展的必然结果:一些物理实验结果与牛顿理论的矛盾召唤着新理论的诞生;为解决这些矛盾而对牛顿理论所做的大量修补工作为相对论的发现奠定了基础;放弃旧的时空观、提出新的物理学原理使爱因斯坦最终建立了相对论.主要部分是广泛而扼要地介绍并评述相对论的主要结果及其实验检验以及最新进展,它们包括:同时性定义、光速不变原理与相对性原理、时间变慢、长度收缩、质-速关系、质-能关系、因果律与超光速;等效原理与广义协变原理、爱因斯坦引力场方程、测地线方程、广义相对论的线性化理论、引力红移、引力波、光线偏折与引力透镜、行星的近日点进动、雷达回波的延缓、中子星、引力塌缩与黑洞、大爆炸宇宙模型、引力能量问题、奇性定理、黑洞热力学与霍金辐射、量子引力等.

In this review paper, I first give my comments on the history of the theory of relativity (special and general theories of relativity). It is shown that the discovery of the theory of relativity is an inevitable outcome of the progress in physics: The inconsistency between some experiments and Newton's theory had called for a new theory; Many studies of modifying Newton's theory to remove this inconsistency became the basic steps up to the theory of relativity; Discarded old concepts of spacetime and at the same times developed new physical principles brought Einstein to discover his theory of relativity. The main part of this paper widely and briefly review the main contents and progress in the theory of relativity and the main experimental tests. This paper deals with Einstein's definition of simultaneity, the principle of the constancy of the velocity of light and the principle of special relativity, time dilation, contraction of length, mass-velocity relation, mass-energy relation, causality and superluminal, the equivalence principle and the principle of general covariance, Einstein's gravitational field equations, geodesic equation, the linearized theory of general relativity, gravitational red-shift, gravitational waves, light deflection and gravitational lensing, planet's perihelion precession, the delay of radar echo, neutron stars, gravitational collapse and black holes, the big-bang cosmological model, gravitational energy problem, the singularity theorem, the thermodynamics of black hole and the Hawking radiation, and quantum gravity.