When did Albert Einstein develop general relativity?
It is a common misconception that Albert Einstein developed his theories of relativity in a single moment; rather, he developed the special theory of relativity in 1905 and spent the following decade working toward the general theory of relativity, which he completed in 1915.12
After publishing his special theory, Einstein sought to incorporate gravity and acceleration into his framework. He began this pursuit around 1907, guided by the principle of equivalence and the goal of general covariance. The mathematical development of the theory proved difficult, requiring Einstein to master complex tensor analysis with the help of mathematician Marcel Grossmann.12
Following years of research, Einstein finalized the general theory of relativity in November 1915, presenting his findings in a series of four papers. This work successfully explained phenomena such as the precession of the perihelion of Mercury and fundamentally changed our understanding of space-time and the universe.12