Understanding Gravity in Five Lessons

I have always wanted to understand post-Newtonian physics, which is probably the most important area of scientific thought of the last 100 years. Not seriously. I’m too old to attempt that. But at least enough to be able to make the occasional statement that impresses friends and colleagues.

I have taken several stabs at it over the years. Earnestly and with irrepressible hope. What happens is that I make good progress initially – say, with the first few chapters of a book I’m reading. And that feels good. But soon thereafter, and especially when the explanation turns into advanced mathematics (as it always does), I get lost. Whereupon I put down the book in despair and stop thinking about it… until I see another book that promises to explain Einstein, et al., to me in simple terms.

It happened again last week when I spotted a promising video on my YouTube feed. The idea was clever: an astrophysicist explaining the concept to a grammar school child, then a high schooler, a college student, and a graduate student. Brilliant!

I dived in and made it nicely through the grammar school explanation. But got lost halfway through high school. And then I gave up. But perhaps you can do better. If so, please write and explain it to me.

Click here.