Is This The End Of Space And Time?

To better understand the universe we may need to kill off Einstein’s long-standing theory

As in history, revolutions are the lifeblood of science. Bubbling undercurrents of disquiet boil over until a new regime emerges to seize power. Then attention turns to toppling the new ruler. The king is dead, long live the king. This has happened many times in the history of physics and astronomy. First we thought the Earth was at the centre of the Solar System – an idea that stood for over a thousand years. Then Copernicus stuck his neck out to say we are just another planet orbiting the Sun. Despite much initial opposition, the old geocentric picture buckled under the weight of evidence from the newly invented telescope.

Then Newton came along to explain that gravity is why the planets orbit the Sun. He said all objects with mass have a gravitational attraction towards each other. According to his ideas we orbit the Sun because it is pulling on us, and the Moon orbits Earth because we are pulling on it. Newton ruled for two-and-a-half centuries before Albert Einstein turned up in 1915 to usurp him with his general theory of relativity. This new picture neatly explained inconsistencies in Mercury’s orbit, and was famously confirmed by observations of a solar eclipse off the coast of Africa in 1919.