Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Wim Libaers
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Neutrino 123
Einstein definitely made some major mistakes, but relativity is not one of them. Relativity is certainly correct, and lots of people say its one of the two pillars of modern physics.  |
Well, you can't be certain that it is correct, the most you can say is that it is consistent with currently available data. Just like Newton's laws were, before some annoying observations appeared that required the relativity correction.
Besides, the other pillar is quantum mechanics, and that theory is in some ways inconsistent with relativity. |
It's inconsistant in very important ways. Technically, both theories are most definitely 'wrong', but they explain what they set out to very well. Thus, they are highly successful theories, just like Newtonian mechanics is. Even if a new Theory of Everything (what I hope to be starting work on next year) is found, Newtonian physics, quantum mechanics, and relativity will still continue to be used successfully to conduct various investigations.
It's not really necessary to collect new data to show the theories are wrong, and in fact, to do so would be quite difficult (though Hawking radiation would probably do the trick, I am not completely familiar with the experimental side of things). One can see these theories are wrong simply by thinking about very small things with very high gravitational forces, particularly the early universe and black holes. These make gravity come into play on small scales, and gravity is not a quantum-consistant theory, so neither theory can explain things very well.