Einstein’s theory of general relativity suggests that our universe originated in a Big Bang. But black holes, and their gravitational forces, challenge the limits of Einstein’s work.
When two massive objects – like black holes or neutron stars – merge, they warp space and time.
Mark Garlick/Science Photo Library via Getty Images
Time dilation might seem like science fiction, but it’s not. There are astronauts circling the Earth right now who are experiencing it – though luckily nowhere near as much as Buzz Lightyear.
Gravity feels like it’s pulling everything toward Earth, but why?
AdventurePhoto/E+ via WikimediaCommons
Gravity is something every person on Earth intuitively understands: It is what keeps you on the ground. But how come gravity pulls down, rather than pushes up? Einstein came up with the answer.
Roger Penrose helped resurrect Einstein’s general theory of relativity, and Reinhard Genzel and Andrea Ghez showed there was a black hole in the middle of our galaxy.
Finally dragged out of the shadows.
Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration /
Scientists turned Earth into one giant telescope to capture the uncapturable.
An artist’s impression of the path of star S2 as it passes very close to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way. The very strong gravitational field causes the colour of the star to shift slightly to the red. (Size and colour exaggerated for clarity.)
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Astronomers traced a single star as it passed close to the black hole at the centre of our galaxy, and detected the telltale signature of Einstein’s gravity in action.
How fast can quantum computing get? Research shows there’s a limit.
Vladvm/Shutterstock.com
A future that continues to have increasingly fast computing depends on quantum physics – but research is showing that there are limits to how fast quantum computers can go.
Artist’s conception of two merging black holes, spinning in a nonaligned fashion.
LIGO/Caltech/MIT/Sonoma State (Aurore Simonnet)
These ripples in the very fabric of the universe were hypothesized by Einstein a century ago. Now scientists have detected them for the third time in a year and a half – ushering in a new era in astrophysics.
There wouldn’t be statues acclaiming Darwin and his theory if it couldn’t stand up to decades of testing.
CGP Grey
In science, the word ‘theory’ has a very specific meaning that’s easy for nonscientists to misunderstand or misconstrue. Here’s what a theory must withstand to be accepted by the scientific community.
Rich galaxy cluster imaged by Hubble.
NASA, ESA, M.J. Jee and H. Ford (Johns Hopkins University)
The discovery of gravitational waves has ushered in a new era in astronomy and physics. Where will the next big discovery be made? There’s no reason for it not to be Africa.
It’s taken centuries for our understanding of gravity to evolve to where it is today, culminating in the discovery of gravitational waves, as predicted by Albert Einstein a century ago.
Oh hey, I heard ripples in space and time, generated as two black holes merged. Call me back.
SXS
General relativity challenges our intuitive conception of how space and time work, which might explain why it’s such a popular target for crank theorists.
As Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary looms, time travel is everywhere – on the screen, at least. Famously, the Doctor can whizz through the years using a “dimensionally transcendental” machine, the TARDIS…
Remember the Theory of Relativity sceptics? As with the Einstein debate, the modern climate debate is based on politics and strawmen, not facts and details.
Flick/beautyredefined
It is hard to imagine a scientific breakthrough more abstract and less politically contentious than Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Yet in Weimar Germany in the 1920s it attracted fierce controversy…
We’re underestimating what primary school students can understand in science.
Formula image from www.shutterstock.com
School students today are taught physics based on obsolete theories and outmoded ways of thinking. Instead of the truth, most learn a naive simplification - the 300 year-old Newtonian physics, itself based…