Einstein's theories could be tested with new technologies

Almost a century ago, a young Swiss physicist revolutionized physics with discoveries about the relationship between space and time, developing a radical new understanding of gravity. In 1915, Albert Einstein published the general relativity theory, who described gravity as a fundamental property of spacetime. It came described in a set of equations that relate the curvature of space-time with the energy and the moment in which the radiation of a matter is present in a certain region.

Almost 100 years later, the theory of gravitation by Einstein remains a fundamental pillar of modern physics and has withstood all tests made by scientists. Nonetheless, until recently it was not possible to do experiments to investigate the theory under extreme conditions. Now, scientists finally have the technology to explore all the possibilities described in general relativity theory (check out the video below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JCKfm_oguE

The grandeur of the work of Einstein impresses even the scientific community: “To me it's absolutely amazing how general relativity has done after 100 years“, says Clifford Will, a theoretical physicist at the University of Florida. "What he wrote down is the same thing we wear today", said in an interview with the scientific publication Live Science. General relativity was confirmed by numerous observations and although there has never been "a scrap of evidence” that there is something wrong with the theory, Will believes that “It is important to test the theory in regimes where it has not been tested before".

We know that General relativity works very well for the “ordinary” force of gravity experienced by humans on Earth or by planets in the solar system. However, the theory it has never been tested in fields with extremely strong gravitational forces. The best prospect for testing the theory under these conditions is to look for ripples in spacetime, known as ripples. gravitational waves, that they can be produced by violent events, such as the merger of two massive bodies, black holes, or extremely dense objects (such as a neutron star).

The challenge, until today, was to develop a technology capable of capturing and studying the gravitational waves. The task seems to have been solved by the The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), with facilities in Richland, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, uses lasers to detect tiny distortions in 2 long L-shaped detectors. by the detectors it is possible to stretch and compress the space, generating a measurement.

O LIGO started operations in 2002 and no gravitational waves were detected. ANDIn 2010, it was deactivated for improvements. His successor, known as Advanced LIGO, is scheduled to go live later this year. There are ua number of other possible experiments that could be done to detect gravitational waves. One would be to look at the properties of gravitational waves. polarized, which, like light, could be observed through a pair of polarized glasses (properly developed).

However, even if scientists manage to detect gravitational waves, Will hopes they will only come to reinforce as Einstein's theories: "My opinion is, let's go on to prove the validity of general relativity“. Thus, why bother doing these experiments? "One of the fundamental goals of physics is to find a theory that unites general relativity, the macroscopic world, quantum mechanics and the microscopic world. However, finding such a theory – known as quantum gravity – may require some modifications to general relativity.” completed Will.

Science is the product of thousands of minds and efforts of men and women through time. But it is impossible not to individualize the genius of some men, as Albert Einstein. Men who, like Nietzsche well defined in Ecce Homo "are born posthumous” and take more than 100 years to understand. To check out the full article made by LiveScience, click here to read the original article (in English).

Sources: School info / LiveScience / Mashable / Prisma / Wikipedia 1