Hundred Years of General Relativity: A global perspective

Generally, colloquiums focus a specific recent development. However, from time to time, it can be illuminating to get a global, long range perspective on a broad area.General relativity is an obvious candidate since a century has passed since its discovery. While our current view of the cosmos has been largely shaped by this theory, it generally not appreciated that we arrived at this understanding slowly, through unexpected twists and turns. Controversies often raged on fundamental issues, and positions held by some of the then most prominent scientists turned out to be on the wrong side of history. Consequently, a global perspective on 100 years of general relativity provides some valuable insights into how diverse forces work in combination even in most the fundamental areas of Science.