Dragging Space and Time

The results of two studies announced in early November 1997 provide unprecedented support for “frame-dragging,” a concept predicted by physicist Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. Frame-dragging describes how massive objects actually distort space and time around themselves as they rotate. One of the studies examined frame-dragging around black holes, an example of which is shown here in an artist's conception.

 

Albert Einstein

In 1905 German-born American physicist Albert Einstein published his first paper outlining the theory of relativity. It was ignored by most of the scientific community. In 1916 he published his second major paper on relativity, which altered mankind's fundamental concepts of space and time.

Stephen William Hawking

Author of the best-selling book A Brief History of Time, physicist Stephen Hawking has strived to make difficult concepts in physics more accessible to the public. His discoveries about gravitation are regarded as some of the most important contributions to that area of physics since Albert Einstein introduced the general theory of relativity in 1915.