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TULASI-PRAJÑA, Sept., 1990
explain gravitational force. Again, since the centrifugal forces had to be considered as due to physical prosperties of empty space, Einstein turned to the hypothesis that the gravitational forces also are due to the properties of empty-space. Also, it is known that the forces of gravity are produced by masses. If, therefore, gravitation is connected with properties of space, these properties of space must be caused or influenced by the masses.8 Thus Einstein explained the phenomenon of gravitation by stating that the presence of matter gives an appreciable curvature to the surrounding space (or more precisely, distorts the curvature of the Minkowski's four-dimensional space-time continuum) and the matter falls down, as it were along the slop of this curvature according to some definite law.
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According to Einstein, gravitation is an inalienable property of all masses; where there is a mass, a grativational field is generated around it in the same way as a magnatic field is created around a magnet. The field itself is nothing but a change in the space-time continuum. In other words, the geometrical properties of space-time continuum are determined by the physical matter existing in it and not intrinsic properties of space and time themselves. These properties in turn determine the motions of that matter.
Features of Gravitational Field
The structure of the gravitational field depends upon mass and velocity of the body, and is determined by the field-equations given by Einstein. Also just as the path of the motion of a piec of iron in a magnetic field is decided by the structures of the field, so that of a body in a gravitational field is decided by the geometrical structures of the gravitational field."
Einstein showed mathematically that the geometric properties of space suffer a change in going over from an inertial to a non-inertial frame of reference, which is equivalent to a gravitational field. Here geometry becomes non-Euclidean, as distinct from conventional geometry.10
As the magnetic fields and the electrical fields are physical realities, so are the gravitational fields. But, unlike the former, the latter emanate from all physical entities, and these include particles and fields. Particles are characterized by mass, and fields by energy. is Common to both is energy, which is to say that any kind of energy, responsible for a gravitational field. Howevers, gravitational interaction becomes important only when bodies of appreciable mass are involved.
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