Potatoes. :D

here are somethings that u must study for next year.
ironically, u dun have to read it.
cause its in the textbook. so good luck. =)
if u do read it, i does help killing ur brains.

History of gravitational theory
Main article: History of gravitational theory

Early history
Efforts to understand gravity began in ancient times. Philosophers in ancient India explained the phenomenon from the 8th century BC. According to Kanada, founder of the Vaisheshika school, "Weight causes falling; it is imperceptible and known by inference."
In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle believed that there was no effect without a cause, and therefore no motion without a force. He hypothesized that everything tried to move towards its proper place in the crystalline spheres of the heavens, and that physical bodies fell toward the center of the Earth in proportion to their weight.
Brahmagupta, in the Brahmasphuta Siddhanta (AD 628), responded to critics of the heliocentric system of Aryabhata (AD 476–550) stating that "all heavy things are attracted towards the center of the earth" and that "all heavy things fall down to the earth by a law of nature, for it is the nature of the earth to attract and to keep things, as it is the nature of water to flow, that of fire to burn, and that of wind to set in motion. The earth is the only low thing, and seeds always return to it, in whatever direction you may throw them away, and never rise upwards from the earth."
In the 9th century, the eldest Banū Mūsā brother, Muhammad ibn Musa, in his Astral Motion and The Force of Attraction, hypothesized that there was a force of attraction between heavenly bodies, foreshadowing Newton's law of universal gravitation. In the 1000s, the Persian scientist Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen), in the Mizan al-Hikmah, discussed the theory of attraction between masses, and it seems that he was aware of the magnitude of acceleration due to gravity. In 1121, Al-Khazini, in The Book of the Balance of Wisdom, differentiated between force, mass, and weight, and theorized that gravity varies with the distance from the centre of the Earth, though he believed that the weight of heavy bodies increase as they are farther from the centre of the Earth. All these early attempts at trying to explain the force of gravity were philosophical in nature.

Scientific revolution
Modern work on gravitational theory began with the work of Galileo Galilei in the late 16th century and early 17th century. In his famous (though probably apocryphal) experiment dropping balls from the Tower of Pisa, and later with careful measurements of balls rolling down inclines, Galileo showed that gravitation accelerates all objects at the same rate. This was a major departure from Aristotle's belief that heavier objects are accelerated faster. (Galileo correctly postulated air resistance as the reason that lighter objects may fall more slowly in an atmosphere.) Galileo's work set the stage for the formulation of Newton's theory of gravity.

Newton's theory of gravitation
Main article: Newton's law of universal gravitation
In 1687, English mathematician Sir Isaac Newton published Principia, which hypothesizes the inverse-square law of universal gravitation. In his own words, “I deduced that the forces which keep the planets in their orbs must be reciprocally as the squares of their distances from the centers about which they revolve; and thereby compared the force requisite to keep the Moon in her orb with the force of gravity at the surface of the Earth; and found them answer pretty nearly.” Forty-two years earlier Ismaël Bullialdus had proposed much the same theory.
Newton's theory enjoyed its greatest success when it was used to predict the existence of Neptune based on motions of Uranus that could not be accounted by the actions of the other planets. Calculations by John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier both predicted the general position of the planet, and Le Verrier's calculations are what led Johann Gottfried Galle to the discovery of Neptune.
Ironically, it was another discrepancy in a planet's orbit that helped to point out flaws in Newton's theory. By the end of the 19th century, it was known that the orbit of Mercury showed slight perturbations that could not be accounted for entirely under Newton's theory, but all searches for another perturbing body (such as a planet orbiting the Sun even closer than Mercury) had been fruitless. The issue was resolved in 1915 by Albert Einstein's new General Theory of Relativity, which accounted for the small discrepancy in Mercury's orbit.
Although Newton's theory has been superseded, most modern non-relativistic gravitational calculations are still made using Newton's theory because it is a much simpler theory to work with than General Relativity, and gives sufficiently accurate results for most applications.

General relativity
Main article: Introduction to general relativity
In general relativity, the effects of gravitation are ascribed to spacetime curvature instead of a force. The starting point for general relativity is the equivalence principle, which equates free fall with inertial motion and describes free-falling inertial objects as being accelerated relative to non-inertial observers on the ground. In Newtonian physics, however, no such acceleration can occur unless at least one of the objects is being operated on by a force.
Einstein proposed that spacetime is curved by matter, and that free-falling objects are moving along locally straight paths in curved spacetime. These straight lines are called geodesics. Like Newton's First Law, Einstein's theory stated that if there is a force applied to an object, it would deviate from the geodesics in spacetime. For example, we are no longer following the geodesics while standing because the mechanical resistance of the Earth exerts an upward force on us. Thus, we are non-inertial on the ground. This explains why moving along the geodesics in spacetime is considered inertial.
Einstein discovered the field equations of general relativity, which relate the presence of matter and the curvature of spacetime and are named after him. The Einstein field equations are a set of 10 simultaneous, non-linear, differential equations. The solutions of the field equations are the components of the metric tensor of spacetime. A metric tensor describes a geometry of spacetime. The geodesic paths for a spacetime are calculated from the metric tensor.
Notable solutions of the Einstein field equations include:
The Schwarzschild solution, which describes spacetime surrounding a spherically symmetric non-rotating uncharged massive object. For compact enough objects, this solution generated a black hole with a central singularity. For radial distances from the center which are much greater than the Schwarzschild radius, the accelerations predicted by the Schwarzschild solution are practically identical to those predicted by Newton's theory of gravity.
The Reissner-Nordström solution, in which the central object has an electrical charge. For charges with a geometrized length which are less than the geometrized length of the mass of the object, this solution produces black holes with two event horizons.
The Kerr solution for rotating massive objects. This solution also produces black holes with multiple event horizons.
The Kerr-Newman solution for charged, rotating massive objects. This solution also produces black holes with multiple event horizons.
The cosmological Robertson-Walker solution, which predicts the expansion of the universe.
General relativity has enjoyed much success because of how its predictions of phenomena which are not called for by the theory of gravity have been regularly confirmed. For example:
General relativity accounts for the anomalous perihelion precession of Mercury.
The prediction that time runs slower at lower potentials has been confirmed by the Pound-Rebka experiment, the Hafele-Keating experiment, and the GPS.
The prediction of the deflection of light was first confirmed by Arthur Eddington in 1919, and has more recently been strongly confirmed through the use of a quasar which passes behind the Sun as seen from the Earth. See also gravitational lensing.
The time delay of light passing close to a massive object was first identified by Irwin Shapiro in 1964 in interplanetary spacecraft signals.
Gravitational radiation has been indirectly confirmed through studies of binary pulsars.
The expansion of the universe (predicted by Alexander Friedmann) was confirmed by Edwin Hubble in 1929.

Gravity and quantum mechanics
Main articles: Graviton and Quantum gravity
Several decades after the discovery of general relativity it was realized that general relativity is incompatible with quantum mechanics. It is possible to describe gravity in the framework of quantum field theory like the other fundamental forces, such that the attractive force of gravity arises due to exchange of virtual gravitons, in the same way as the electromagnetic force arises from exchange of virtual photons. This reproduces general relativity in the classica limit. However, this approach fails at short distances of the order of the Planck length, where a more complete theory of quantum gravity (or a new approach to quantum mechanics) is required. Many believe the complete theory to be string theory, or more currently M Theory.

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