Einstein and Mercury: How the Orbit of Mercury Proved Einstein was Right

The orbit of the planet Mercury is a bit strange and doesn’t act exactly as expected. This was such a problem, that we even invented another planet to account for its weird orbit. In fact it is this strangeness that provided evidence that Einstein was right all along. Let’s find out more.
The orbit of Mercury doesn’t act like we expect it to, it has a rate of precession that is higher than expected. In the 19th century, astronomers even suggested that this was due to an additional planet that they named Vulcan. In fact the real reason was even more strange and due to the curvature of spacetime. This proved Einstein and his theory of general relativity correct after all.
Chapters
0:00 - Introduction
0:29 - General Relativity
2:45 - Orbits and ellipses
5:00 - Precession
6:00 - The problem with Mercury
7:20 - Relativity
8:15 - Real World Applications

[@Noneofyourbusiness2000]

I wish you went into more detail about the actual calculations, as complex as they may be.

[@scottydu81]

What makes you think HE understands them? Lol

[@avo616]

It’s learning curve not learning dive my friend

[@stephanieparker1250]

Yea I like examinations of calculations, but some people hate it lol

[@HaggardPillockHD]

​@@scottydu81 too right, could be regurgitating other KZbinrs content or some popular science article.

[@coolmanchiefs]

That would be cool to know how to use those calculations without having a PHD

[@vincentclark5739]

“Near to black holes time will pass even more slowly, but that’s for another video” Me- Aw maaaaan Can’t wait for that other video!

[@joz6683]

Thank you for your tireless work and great content 👏

[@LearningCurveScience]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@nethoncho]

Awesome video. Thanks for sharing.

[@LearningCurveScience]

Wow, thank you so much. That's very kind of you!

[@DurtyDiddy]

7:59 was where it all fell into place for me. Wonderful visual presentations!

[@stephanieparker1250]

This is great! The explanation makes sense and I love your graphics. 💫🌏🌞

[@Nightscape_]

Are there any videos that show the maths for calculating the orbit?

[@willo7734]

Great video! I’ve always wondered about the details of how Mercury’s orbit proved Relativity.

[@wayneyadams]

1:00 Newton's law of gravity proved Kepler's Third law of Planetary motion. Kepler derived his laws of motion through careful observations without understanding why they worked. It took Newton to finally prove that is laws, the third in particular worked. When I was teaching Physics, I used to start with Newton's law and derive Kepler's Third law making assumptions (like perfectly circular orbits) to simplify the derivation. The point here is that the results from Newton's law agreed with Kepler's Law which was derived through observation, in other words, Newton's law worked for the planets, except for Mercury, but one outlier isn't bad.

[@_Breakdown]

Thank you - - but - - it seems to me that einstein’s theory _MAKES NO SENSE IN TRYING TO EXPLAIN MERCURY’S ORBIT._ WHY WOULD RELATIVITY BECOME VOLATILE + NO LONGER UNIFORM CLOSER TO THE SUN? It makes NO SENSE. If it were TRUE - - then wouldn’t it apply to *_EVERY MOON IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM (including ours)?_*

[@sciencetalks909]

Awesome explanation...Wish you explained GPS matter in more detail

[@KetilDuna]

I'd like to see more of spin stabilization, artificial gravity and why this works in space. Thank you for beautiful videos!

[@LukeGilkerson]

Thanks for the great content! I'd love to know where you got the moving visuals, especially the one at 7:58. I'd love to use it in my own online classroom.

[@LearningCurveScience]

I made all the animations myself (made in blender). You're quite welcome to use it in your classroom.

[@mathewmunro3770]

You spent about 15-seconds on the crux of the matter (from 8-minutes in). I wish you had drawn it out much more, as you didn't really explain it. What exactly happens? Does it go slower than it would under Neutonian mechanics at the perihelion? Is it due to loss of kinetic energy due to the radiation of gravity waves?

[@surjeetchauhan3160]

Very important pointful ...thank You and Your team..🎉

[@erzathorsteen830]

Could you make a video about venus missing twin? Btw. The theory of it once existing and flung out of the system

[@bazpearce9993]

I can't find anything on that subject.

[@dennissmith2430]

Im wondering how close would Mercury have to be, in order for its day and night temperature to remain the same?

[@stephenmedley5844]

Newton would disagree if he knew that the sun is moving through Space, dragging all Planets with it, plus if he knew the milkyway itself moves through space, dragging all solar systems in spiral arms with it..

[@user-fd3dy3on3c]

Since you know much on Mercury perihelion, could you tell me if the difference of 43 arcseconds observed from Newton's calculation is equivalent to the Sun acting with MORE or LESS gravity force on Mercury compared to what the Sun should act based on Newton's law of gravitation? I would even more appreciate your answer if you have any calculation to support that answer. Thanks much. Claude

[@benmcreynolds8581]

I still think it's unfair to declare Gravity is not a force. It plays such a crucial role in our universe. We explain it as a object moving on curved space time but can't Gravity can still be a force from that.. No? Just like density, momentum, the shape of local geometry in space; etc. It just seems like Gravity should fit in with these variables in the universe? How come we can't count gravity as something more important? It plays such a crucial role all throughout our universe... It just bums me out that the scientific community has agreed upon setting aside gravity in a way like they have.. idk

[@gordythecreator]

Has anyone studied the Sun's gravitational effects on Time Dialation?

[@justintodd5145]

Strange to think that one object on one side of the universe has gravitational pull on another object opposite side of the universe.

[@fsponj]

That's not actuall true because gravity moves at the speed of light so for example, if a body appeared one light-Minute away from the Earth, we wouldn't feel it's effects for 1 minute. The thing is: the universe is expanding faster than the speed of light. So 2 objects on the opposites sides of the universe would be too far to feel eachother's gravitational effects, but galaxies hundreds of millions of years away are attracted by a small grain of sand off the coast of New Zealand.

[@shanent5793]

What is the centre of gravity and why does it happen to be inside the earth?

[@StephenBridgett]

Thanks for fantastic videos! If the quantum realm is not locally real then why do we not experience the effect at scale

[@stephanieparker1250]

Oh! ‘Blush’ 🥰🥰🥰

[@aijackchowdhury5929]

You haven't given the explanation of spacetime?

[@ObiWanCannabi]

2:20 yeah no gravity and space are weird, the point where gravity is strongest is actually the crust, you would be weightless at the core if you ignored the pressure and heat, the planet pulling you with its mass equally out in all directions. So time travels slower up here on the surface

[@KthW]

Freddie strikes again

[@AquilaEagleMoto]

Using gravity to visualise gravity. Interesting.

[@EmperorZelos]

The shape you show at 3:15 and so, are not ellipses, those are egg shapes...

[@TitanElectricmanShouldRuinMIBU]

McVulcan

[@jonbainmusicvideos8045]

All Einstein's models were based on a simplified 2D aggregate. When you let a computer evolve the orbit of Mercury using a 3d evolutionary matrix based Newtonian-Planck formula, then it looks like this: kzbin.info/www/bejne/enSYm4RsbbqSr6s

[@jonathanbaincosmologyvideo3868]

No it did not. The OGS15 algorithm proved that Einstein's model was merely in 2D, and that by not including the Z-axis, his error margin was twice the size of that which which he claimed for his own theories.

[@_Breakdown]

Thank you. Because his explanation about Mercury’s motion MAKES NO SENSE TO ME. Btw - what is OGS15?

[@FrankAnzalone]

Are you trying to say that none of the other planets are affected by the curvature caused by the Sun

[@LearningCurveScience]

Venus and Earth are both affected but to a much smaller extent than Mercury

[@FrankAnzalone]

@@LearningCurveScience thanks

[@nathanfisher6925]

He doesn't go into quite the detail on it that I think he should, but the gist of it is when you are closer to a gravity well, time moves slower than when you are farther fron it. This effectively "slows you down" with respect to the fartherst point in your orbit, so you spend more "time" close to the well than you should. This throws off the symmetry of your orbit a little bit, causing it to precess. It won't happen if you're in perfectly circular orbit since there's no variation in the speed that time is moving at any point in your orbit. Earth still experiences this, but it's much less because (A) earth is in a much more circular orbit than mercury (which greatly decreases the time difference) and (B) earth is a lot farther away from the sun (which reduces the magnitude of the two different times) This makes the difference very very small. I also wish he would have mentioned by how much the GPS satellites have to adjust their clocks for being in orbit. (they lose 45 micro-seconds per day) BTW this was also noticed on earth, by flying an atomic clock on an airplane and seeing it drift from the control clock on the ground. Even getting up in the air a few miles could be noticed.

[@_Breakdown]

@@FrankAnzalone No. He’s 100% WRONG. *FACT: VENUS IS **_THE MOST STABLE AND SYMMETRICAL ORBIT IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM - - IT’S ORBIT IS CLOSEST TO THAT OF A PERFECT CIRCLE._** AND, IT IS CLOSER TO MERCURY THAN ANY OTHER PLANET. einstein’s theory about Mercury IN TRUTH MAKES NO SENSE IN EXPLAINING IT’S MOTION.*

[@_Breakdown]

@@LearningCurveScience No. That’s 100% WRONG. *FACT: VENUS IS **_THE MOST STABLE AND SYMMETRICAL ORBIT IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM - - IT’S ORBIT IS CLOSEST TO THAT OF A PERFECT CIRCLE._** AND, IT IS CLOSER TO MERCURY THAN ANY OTHER PLANET. einstein’s theory about Mercury IN TRUTH MAKES NO SENSE IN EXPLAINING IT’S MOTION.*

[@TaranovskiAlex]

To be fair - kind of lame explanation/description... "Einstein's theory fixes thing X..." - Einstein's theory fixes lots of things (e.g. GPS, which you briefly mentioned, but didn't explain WHY EXACTLY), and this explanation is slapped like a patch. I'm not saying I'm a denier, but it leaves a bad aftertaste. At least you could describe the equations or approach or something - regarding why exactly the theory fixes that. You could also add some meaningful numbers on what is the time rate at the closest and furthest points of the orbit, compare it to the ones on Earth - things like that. Hope your content gets better.

[@avo616]

Or you could just go and do further research yourself and look for other more in-depth videos and use this as a starting point?

[@tiberiusgracchus4222]

@@avo616 Amem. Buy a general relativity textbook and figure it out. Take a course on it. Nobody is hiding this information from anyone.

[@TaranovskiAlex]

@@tiberiusgracchus4222 All I'm saying is that the video is not very informative on the subject. The issue is literally described in my original comment. What's next? A ten minute video with some basic description how GPS works with the ending "oh, by the way, with classic physics it doesn't really work, but Einstein's theory fixed it"?

[@jasonhayward6965]

Hi my name is Albert Einstein and I was born in the 1930s and I'm so out of date it's a laughable we didn't even have penicillin in fact the whole plunk scale was just made up because everyone was just sick and tired of finding new stuff and then I did I yelled out Quanta and it went crazy we don't even know what we're looking at we just shoot a bullet into the mid into the site into the nighttime and we hear a sound and go there you go we prove something there. Before the technological societal advancements the minds of average rando person in 2024 is better organised than Albert Einstein's brain

[@limash8424]

Explain why I have no girl friend