Ever since Albert Einstein supplanted the Newtonian model with his general theory of relativity in 1915, his revolutionary work has been the bedrock of modern physics. Some six decades after his death, many of his ideas, including gravitational waves and spacetime’s curvature beyond our solar system, continue to be confirmed by physicists working at the limits of human understanding. And even when Einstein logged his most notorious calculating error – failing to account for the possibility of an expanding Universe in his field equations of general relativity – he would actually later be proven kind of, sort of right. This animated explainer from MinutePhysics breaks down the equation that became known as ‘Einstein’s biggest blunder’, including how the discovery in 1998 that the Universe was not growing consistently, but accelerating, brought it back to life.
Video by MinutePhysics
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