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Another proof for the correctness of Einstein's theory succeeded, however, somewhat earlier than the proof of the gravitational waves. According to Einstein, both gravitational fields and high velocities should influence our time measure.

In October 1971, two planes took off for an earth orbit, one in an easterly direction, the other westward. Both had high-precision cesium atomic clocks on board. The time that elapsed in the plane after an earth orbit is compared to the clock of the ground station. According to the general relativity theory, the board clocks should run faster than the clock of the ground station, because the gravitational field at the height of the flight route is weaker, on the one hand, according to the special relativity theory, the board clock of the eastward flying aircraft should run slower than the clock on the ground, because here the speed of the earth rotation adds up with that of the aircraft. When flying westward, on the other hand, the speed of the earth's rotation must be subtracted from that of the airplane, since the earth rotates faster eastward than the airplane flies westward, this clock would have to run faster.

The attempt was a complete success and Einstein was confirmed once again. The results showed only slight deviations from the calculated value. For us humans the effect is not noticeable, because the difference to our earthly normal time is only 275 nanoseconds. A modern satellite navigation system, on the other hand, could not function and it properly would ignore time stretching. depending on Einstein's theory, it is caused by flight altitude and flight speed. The route has been calculated and they have arrived as predicted.

Albert Einstein has changed the world and his gravitational theory of a curved space-time has opened many doors and made a number of phenomena in our universe calculable. Even though we can hardly imagine its paradoxical time phenomena, we can see how gravitation works, but why space time bends by masses is still not known. The scope of the general theory of relativity does not include processes that take place inside atoms. According to the general opinion of physicists, quantum mechanics is responsible for this.

Max Planck, Werner Heisenberg and Niels Bohr had developed quantum mechanics between 1900 and 1925 for what happened in the subatomic world. Albert Einstein's view was: God does not play dice.

Throughout his life he did not want to resign himself to the bizarre interactions inside the atoms, but if the phenomenon of gravitation is dependent on the masses of the bodies, then its cause could be to be found in the core building blocks of the atoms, the smallest components of these masses.

Mathematicians and physicists all over the world have been trying for decades to bring order into the apparent chaos of the core building stones of matter and huge particle accelerators are supposed to help. At almost the speed of light, atoms collide here, bursting into a multitude of subatomic particles of very short lifetime.

If one learns to understand the world inside the atoms, then perhaps a unification of quantum mechanics with general relativity is possible and the secret of gravity could be decided with it. So far, however, no resounding success has been achieved; instead, coincidence seems to shake Einstein's gravitational theory of a curved space-time.

Part 8