Einstein presented the final field equations of general relativity
On this day · 25 November 1915
On November 25, 1915, after four frantic Thursdays of revisions, Einstein laid the finished field equations of gravity before the Berlin academy.
On November 25, 1915, Albert Einstein read a short paper, Die Feldgleichungen der Gravitation (“The Field Equations of Gravitation”), to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin. It was the last of four communications he submitted on consecutive Thursdays that month, each correcting the last as he raced toward a generally covariant theory of gravity.
The paper gave the equations their final form, relating the curvature of spacetime to the matter and energy within it. Days earlier, on November 18, Einstein had shown the theory correctly accounted for a long-standing puzzle in Mercury’s orbit — the first hard evidence that he was right.
Gravity, in this view, is not a force but the shape of spacetime itself.
The mathematician David Hilbert had reached closely related equations almost simultaneously, sparking a gentle priority dispute. Yet the physical theory — general relativity, later confirmed by bending starlight and gravitational waves — was unmistakably Einstein’s.
Sources & references
2 referencesWell-established. Corroborated by 2 independent sources.
