If Einstein was wrong, could killing off space-time theory help us better understand the universe

This has happened many times in the history of physics and astronomy. First, we thought Earth was at the center of the solar system — an idea that stood for over 1,000 years. Then Nicolaus Copernicus stuck his neck out to say that the whole system would be a lot simpler if we are just another planet orbiting the sun. Despite much initial opposition, the old geocentric picture eventually buckled under the weight of evidence from the newly invented telescope.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity has been successful for over a century, but some say it has theoretical shortcomings. Some of the criticisms of Einstein’s theory include:

Incompatibility with quantum mechanics 

There is no widely accepted theory that combines general relativity and quantum mechanics

Singularities 

The theory predicts its own failure at singularities inside black holes and at the Big Bang

Gravity deviations 

The theory has only been tested in weak gravity, and deviations from general relativity are not excluded

Mathematical errors 

Einstein made some mathematical mistakes in his work

Yes, Einstein was initially confused by the singularity at the center of a black hole

• 1939 paper In a 1939 paper, Einstein concluded that the idea of black holes was “not convincing” and that they didn’t exist in the real world. Einstein’s analysis led him to conclude that the singularity at the center of a black hole was an artifact of the coordinate systems he used, and that the singularity actually referred to the event horizon.

Einstein also made some other mistakes, including:

• Doubting the existence of gravitational waves for a time 
• Errors in the proofs of E = mc2 
• Failing to consider seminal experiments

Einstein published (in 1922) a qualitative theory of superconductivity based on the vague idea of electrons shared in orbits. This paper predated modern quantum mechanics, and today is regarded as being incorrect

Is Einstein’s theory of relativity disproved?

Though some of these criticisms had the support of reputable scientists, Einstein’s theory of relativity is now accepted by the scientific community. Reasons for criticism of the theory of relativity have included alternative theories, rejection of the abstract-mathematical method, and alleged errors of the theory

Have all of Einstein’s theories been proven?

In science, no theory is actually proven because new discoveries might falsify it. But none of Einstein’s theories or other works have been disproven. This includes Special Relativity, General Relativity, photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, Bose Einstein condensate, some parts of quantum mechanics, and many others

What is the problem with the theory of relativity?

The crucial problem of Einstein’s theory of relativity is that the relative spacetime (length contraction and time dilation) is not true. If the relative spacetime was true, in any sense, Einstein’s theory of relativity should be a very great theory. But, in fact, relative spacetime does be false

What theory did Einstein disagree with?

Einstein saw Quantum Theory as a means to describe Nature on an atomic level, but he doubted that it upheld “a useful basis for the whole of physics.” He thought that describing reality required firm predictions followed by direct observations

What is the drawback of Einstein theory of relativity?

General Relativity Does Not Respect Local Energy-Momentum

There are serious problems with local energy-momentum conservation in general relativity (see [1] for a review). It is well known that Einstein’s theory does not assign a definite stress-energy tensor to the gravitational field

Instead of a pull, Einstein saw gravity as the result of curved space. He said that all objects in the universe sit in a smooth, four-dimensional fabric called space-time. Massive objects such as the sun warp the space-time around them, and so Earth’s orbit is simply the result of our planet following this curvature. To us that looks like a Newtonian gravitational pull. This space-time picture has now been on the throne for over 100 years, and has so far vanquished all pretenders to its crown. The discovery of gravitational waves in 2015 was a decisive victory, but, like its predecessors, it too might be about to fall. That’s because it is fundamentally incompatible with the other big beast in the physics zoo: Quantum theory. 

The quantum world is notoriously weird. Single particles can be in two places at once, for example. Only by making an observation do we force it to ‘choose’. Before an observation we can only assign probabilities to the likely outcomes. In the 1930s, Erwin Schrödinger devised a famous way to expose how perverse this idea is. He imagined a cat in a sealed box accompanied by a vial of poison attached to a hammer. The hammer is hooked up to a device that measures the quantum state of a particle. Whether or not the hammer smashes the vial and kills the cat hinges on that measurement, but quantum physics says that until such a measurement is made, the particle is simultaneously in both states, which means the vial is both broken and unbroken and the cat is alive and dead.

Try and use general relativity and quantum theory together, and it doesn’t work. “Above a certain energy, you get probabilities that are larger than one,” said Hossenfelder. One is the highest probability possible — it means an outcome is certain. You can’t be more certain than certain. Equally, calculations sometimes give you the answer infinity, which has no real physical meaning. The two theories are therefore mathematically inconsistent. So, like many monarchs throughout history, physicists are seeking a marriage between rival factions to secure peace. They’re searching for a theory of quantum gravity — the ultimate diplomatic exercise in getting these two rivals to share the throne. This has seen theorists turn to some outlandish possibilities.

1) The cosmological constant

When he was crafting his theory of gravity, general relativity, Einstein needed a bit of a fudge factor. Everyone back then assumed, based on the information available, that the universe was static, unchanging place, but his equations kept disagreeing. To make them fit the data, he added the factor, which he named the cosmological constant, into the equations. When he learned, in subsequent decades, that the universe is actually expanding, he supposedly exclaimed “Then away with the cosmological constant!” He famously considered it his biggest blunder

2) Gravitational waves

Two years ago, scientists announced they had directly detected gravitational waves, literal ripples in the fabric of spacetime. It was a huge validation of Einstein’s work, which had predicted their existence almost exactly 100 years prior. The find also heralded a new era of astronomy, as researchers now have a new way to study the universe. But for a time, Einstein himself doubted they actually existed. In the 1930s, two decades after unveiling general relativity, he was set to publish a paper stating the ripples didn’t exist after all. He was eventually persuaded of their existence again, and of course now we know for a fact they exist, having actually seen them.

Implications of his theories

Many of Einstein’s insights into the universe were the result of his clever thought experiments — he literally revolutionized physics just by thinking hard about it. So he was clearly capable of coming up with big ideas and following them through. And yet, many times in his life, he resisted the weirder implications of his work.

One of the pioneers of quantum physics, the unpredictable science of the smallest particles, he never cared for the idea that the universe was, fundamentally, random. “God does not play dice with the universe,” he once said. (The physicist Niels Bohr supposedly responded, “Einstein, stop telling God what to do.”)

Einstein also didn’t care for black holes, a natural consequence of his general relativity, since the rules of physics goes crazy around the singularities at the center of the holes. And while he did believe in another consequence of relativity — that massive objects would warp spacetime enough to act as a kind of lens, redirecting the light from distant sources — he didn’t think we could ever see it. “Of course, there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly,” he wrotein the abstract of the Science paper introducing gravitational lensing. Wrong.

Here are some alternative theories of space and time

Cyclic universes 

This theory suggests that the universe may be immortal, with new big bangs occurring periodically due to clashes that repeat

Brans-Dicke theory 

This theory is an alternative to general relativity, replacing the gravitational constant with a time-dependent scalar field

Simulation hypothesis 

This theory suggests that the universe is a hologram projected by the universe itself, rather than a computer simulation

Anti-de Sitter/Conformal Field Theory (AdS/CFT) correspondence 

This theory relates a quantum field theory on flat spacetime to a string theory

Causal set theory 

This theory is a program in physics that inspires a new way of thinking about the causal theory of spacetime

Mirror symmetry 

This theory is most studied in cases where six of the dimensions of the target spaces are compactified

Superfluid space-time 

This theory is appropriate for galaxies because of their smaller velocities

Cartan suggested a simple generalization of Einstein’s theory of gravitation. He proposed a model of space time with a metric tensor and a linear “connection” compatible with the metric but not necessarily symmetric. The torsion tensor of the connection is related to the density of intrinsic angular momentum

What is the theory of time space?

General relativity is a physical theory about space and time and it has a beautiful mathematical description. According to general relativity, the spacetime is a 4-dimensional object that has to obey an equation, called the Einstein equation, which explains how the matter curves the spacetime

What did Einstein call his theory of space-time?

Gravity feels strongest where spacetime is most curved, and it vanishes where spacetime is flat. This is the core of Einstein’s theory of general relativity, which is often summed up in words as follows: “matter tells spacetime how to curve, and curved spacetime tells matter how to move

What is the theory of space and time Stephen Hawking?

Hawking ultimately proposes the conclusion that the universe might be finite, but boundless. In other words, it may have no beginning nor ending in time, but merely exist with a finite amount of matter and energy

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