Physicists are working hard to unite Einstein’s theory of relativity with quantum mechanics. It’s no easy task.
Articles on Albert Einstein
Displaying 101 - 120 of 126 articles
Space, time and space-time: it’s all relative.
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.
Special relativity was inspired, but it took true genius to conceive of general relativity. Had Einstein not come up with it, it may have taken decades for us to figure it out.
This month is the centenary of the general theory of relativity. But how did we get from the absolutism of Newton to the relativity of Einstein?
Testing the bizarre theory of quantum mechanics isn’t easy, but scientists are making progress.
Scientists say they’ve have closed the loopholes on an experiment that tests a half-century old theory in quantum mechanics.So what does it reveal?
Scientists are not always as scientific as many suppose. Recent well-publicized cases of scientific fraud prove that scientists can be as susceptible to the allures of wealth, power and fame as politicians…
A special Pi Day this year for those who celebrate this remarkable number on March 14, a date that can be written 3/14. Given 3.14 is Pi to two decimal places, what happens when you add in the year?
Albert Einstein may be most famous for his mass-energy equivalence formula E = mc2, but his work also laid down the foundation for modern quantum mechanics. His analysis of the “spookiness” of quantum…
Forget about anti-ageing creams and hair treatments. If you want to stay young, get a fast spaceship. That is what Einstein’s Theory of Relativity predicted a century ago, and it is commonly known as “twin…
Remarkable connections between the right and left hemispheres of Albert Einstein’s brain may have contributed to his intelligence…
Astronomers have been searching for a mysterious substance called “dark matter” since the 1930s. Most scientists still believe it exists, despite many fruitless decades. Now we propose a new theory of…
Developing a Theory of Everything is physics’ Holy Grail. So could it have been completed in recent weeks? And by an outsider, working alone? American mathematical physicist-turned-hedge-fund-consultant…
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…
As 2012 comes to a close and you toast the New Year, be sure to also raise a glass to one Vesto Melvin Slipher. My intent is to describe what Slipher did 100 years ago in Flagstaff, Arizona and why this…
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…
In my previous article we discussed the “who, what, when, where and how” of the worldwide gravitational wave detection effort. The observant observer will have noticed we’re still missing the “why”. Why…
Albert Einstein made an executive decision to revolutionise our understanding of gravity in a paper published in 1916. Nearly 100 years on, a key prediction of Einstein’s theory has eluded direct detection…
I have spent almost 40 years trying to detect gravity waves. When I started there were just a few of us working away in university labs. Today 1,000 physicists working with billion-dollar observatories…
Top contributors
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Emeritus Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, OzGrav, The University of Western Australia
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Sydney
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Professor, Philosophy of Science, The University of Melbourne
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Professor of Physics, Penn State
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Senior Lecturer and ARC Future Fellow, Monash University
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Associate Professor of Physics, Oklahoma State University
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Professor of Mathematical Physics, University of Cape Town
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South African Research Chair in Physical Cosmology, Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics, University of Cape Town
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Professor, Physics & Astronomy, Bishop's University
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Reader in Astrophysics, Keele University
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Senior Lecturer in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Coordinator of Swinburne Astronomy Online, Swinburne University of Technology
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Cambridge
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Professor of Psychology, Indiana University
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Professor of Astrophysics, University of Glasgow
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Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Canterbury