Albert Einstein was introduced to me by my dad in my childhood. He made a scrapbook using construction papers featuring photographs of many prominent personalities from around the world. That scrapbook also included pictures of famous places worldwide. One of the personalities featured in the scrapbook was Albert Einstein.
His theories of General relativity and special relativity are the reasons for my liking him. Until Newton, space and time were considered absolute; they were not affected by any movements happening around them.Einstein's special theory of relativity revolutionized those thoughts, showing that space and time are not absolute; they are relative and are affected by movements happening around them. In fact, space is bent by the mass of any object in it.
His general theory of relativity shows us that gravity is not a force. Instead, if an object is orbiting in a curved space bent by a large object, then the orbiting object will follow the shortest path in orbiting around the large object. That's the case happening in the Earth's movement around the Sun. The larger Sun bends the space around it. The Earth orbits around the Sun in the bent space. Actually, the shortest path in a bent curved space is a circle. That bent space around the Sun makes the Earth run around the Sun in a circular path.
I learned the theories of relativity in simple terms from books written by scientists who have authored scientific works for general readers. Eric Chaisson's 'Relatively Speaking,' Stephen Hawking's 'A Brief History of Time,' and books on astrophysics written by Michio Kaku and Brian Greene helped me understand the modern concepts of space and time described in modern physics.
In fact, Albert Einstein was a revolutionary figure in modern physics who transformed the concepts of space and time.
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