Which scientist developed the theory of general relativity, published in 1915?

Albert Einstein developed the theory of general relativity, which he presented in its final form in 1915. The theory describes gravity not as a conventional force between masses, but as the curvature of spacetime caused by matter and energy.

General relativity extended Einstein’s special theory of relativity, published in 1905. One of its early successes was explaining the small extra shift in Mercury’s orbit that Newtonian gravity could not fully account for. It also predicted that light would bend near massive objects and that clocks would run at different rates in different gravitational fields.

The 1919 solar eclipse expedition led by Arthur Eddington helped make Einstein internationally famous after observations were interpreted as supporting the predicted bending of starlight. Modern technologies also require relativistic corrections: global positioning systems account for both special-relativistic and general-relativistic time differences. Einstein received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics, chiefly for explaining the photoelectric effect rather than for general relativity.