Posted on 03/15/2018 9:29:33 PM PDT by BenLurkin
1. Starlight bends — but how much?
Einstein performed a series of calculations to determine the size of the predicted shift but initially muffed the effort, arriving at a number that was half the correct value.
Had the astronomers managed to test this number in their initial eclipse-viewing efforts, their observations wouldn’t have matched his prediction. But their attempts were stymied by weather in 1912 and by war in 1914. By the time they made the necessary observation, in the spring of 1919, Einstein had corrected his blunder — and astronomers saw exactly the shift that he had predicted.
2. Gravitational waves don’t exist — or do they?
Einstein moved on to other problems. When he returned to it two decades later, he concluded that gravitational waves couldn’t exist because they’d create “singularities” — regions in which space and time are stretched to infinity.
Einstein had goofed because of the mathematical coordinate system he used to tackle the problem. It's a bit like what happens with the latitude and longitude used to track positions on Earth... It works in most places on the planet. But as one gets close to the poles, lines of longitude converge and the system breaks down.
3. Einstein and the expanding universe
Einstein was uncomfortable with some of relativity’s implications, including one of the biggest — that the universe isn’t a static thing but an entity that must expand or contract. This was unthinkable to Einstein, who believed the universe existed in a “steady state.”
So Einstein added a fudge factor to his equations, a kind of energy associated with empty space. This cosmological constant allowed for a stable universe. But sure enough, astronomers in the 1920s confirmed that the universe was expanding. Einstein later called the cosmological constant the “greatest blunder” of his career.
(Excerpt) Read more at nbcnews.com ...
And?
I make mistakes like that all the time. Like calculating how long the beer supply will last.
So to defend the ridiculously overrated Hawking, NBC decides to BASH Einstein decades later?
And ... I wish those were the worst mistakes I ever made!
“I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. In such an economy, the means of production are owned by society itself and are utilized in a planned fashion. A planned economy, which adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to every man, woman, and child. The education of the individual, in addition to promoting his own innate abilities, would attempt to develop in him a sense of responsibility for his fellow-men in place of the glorification of power and success in our present society.”
Albert Einstein, Why Socialism?, 1949 [49]
Einstein thought highly of Vladimir Lenin, saying: “I honor Lenin as a man who completely sacrificed himself and devoted all his energy to the realization of social justice. I do not consider his methods practical, but one thing is certain: men of his type are the guardians and restorers of humanity.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_views_of_Albert_Einstein
Maybe so, but this is a pretty light bashing, comprising, as it does, several hoary chestnuts.
Well, his biggest mistake is that there is a fundamental incompatibility between relativity and quantum mechanics.
His theory of locality, while it is a nice, pie in the sky sort of thing, is wrong.
Bell showed that either Einstein was right or quantum logic was wrong, and Quantum logic has been proved again and again.
He also proved that there was no “hidden variable” theory that could mitigate the differences between Einstein’s view and quantum logic.
So Einstein was flat out wrong... and God, does indeed, play Dice!
No offense but those quotes are damning
I ran out of loaded magazines at my last USPSA pistol match. Embarrassing to come up a couple rounds short, definitely hurts scoring.
I bet Einstein did that too, but it was lower than third so it did not make the article.
Give Uncle Albert a break. He didn’t have Al Gore and his internet nor computers.
What he did was with pencils, paper, chalk and a blackboard.
Do you think any of our millenials could duplicate that today (except the some India, Red China, or Israel)?
It seems to me that all planetary physics is just edumicated guessing. You can’t ever prove or disprove nuffin.
I wonder why he thought so highly of Lenin rather than a socialist closer to home named Adolph? Oh, 1949. I guess Adolph’s socialism had died by then.
Funny how people like Einstein can be so smart in some ways, and not learn obvious lessons in other areas.
>>>No offense but those quotes are damning<<<
I think that was the point of the Post.
I’m nearly 65 years old and I still learn something new every day.
As my Late Mother used to say, some People are so smart, they’re stupid.
I never understood what she meant until I reached adulthood.
But are you or I in a position to make this statement?
That is, are you, in particular, in a position to pass judgment on his Special and General Theories of Relativity?
If so, let's hear it.
Cheer up. There is more to learn.
I can sleep at night knowing that we will never know as much as we don’t know. LOL
That’s a strange opinion, in the face of the several, and even numerous, spacecraft that have been sent to orbit Saturn, and fly by Pluto, and even land at precise locations on Mars, on several occasions.
So what kind of straw is your nuffin brain stuffed with? ... I’d like to know.
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