Has Einstein's theories been mainly discredited in modern times?

Question

By modern times I mean last 50 years.

Answer 1

Absolutely not. In fact, they keep finding things to substantiate his theories. OK, his initial ideas about photo-electric effect are now considered crude, but they were right. And they helped lead to quantum mechanics.

Every time that modern astronomy and methods of measuring time improve, the accuracy of his time dilation prediction from special relativity get further substantiated. The orbit of Mercury differs from the straight Newtonian predictions. The differences seem to be exactly accounted for by special relativity.

It was the invention of cesium clocks that allowed an experiment to be performed that really did show that time could pass differently for objects that are moving.

Added to? Polished? Ammended? Yes. A lot of Eisntein's work has been improved upon. Darned little has been discredited and neither of his ground breaking results have been discredited.

Answer 2

No!

A better way to think about it is that better models of the universe have been discovered.

A similar transition occurred when Einstein's theories provided a better model to explain the breadth of human experience than did Newton's. In fact, if certain quantites (energy for example) are taken to be "small," Einstein's equations transform into Newton's equations. For this reason, Newton's theory is said to be a limiting case of Einstein's theory. In these "limiting" situations, Newton's theory still provides an excellent (and much easier) method of computation. So Newton's theories haven't been discredited either; their realm of applicability has been found to be smaller than it was originally thought to be.

Today, we find the same thing ocurring. In quantum mechanics, if the number of particles (or repititions of an experiment) is "large", modern equations transform into Einstein's equations. Therefore, Einstein has been verified, not discredited. We have simply found that the realm of applicability of his theory is limited.

Some day, a better model may (hopefully) be proposed that will explain all of the current theories as limiting cases. Such a theory has already been dubbed the "Theory of Everything," though it remains yet to be fully formulated. One obstacle in its way is that it could require energies so great to verify it that spacetime will be extremely warped. If this warping reaches a critical point, the information that the theory was verified (or not) could be irretrievable. So we may never have such a theory. If this is the case, we'll be destined forever to replacing old theories with ever better approximations to reality.

Answer 3

No more than Newton's. Unless the original theoretician was WAYYYYY off, subsequent theoreticians are simply refining and correcting the old theory on the basis of new data. Discrediting rarely happens.

It is even true that some theories seem to discredit older theories, but then further refinement in measurement and experiment prove that the basis of the older theory is still good, just misinterpretted or insufficiently supported by the then available data.

The luminiferous ether may prove to be such a theoretical contention. Once abandoned, (it was the micheson/Morely experiment that led to its demise) something like it is being reconsidered to help explain the mysteries of the quantum level.

Answer 4

What Einstein had in mind was dificult to tell. It did reqired better explanation about the Special Theory of Relativity. Basically that theory has been misinterpreted many time by so called speudo science.
The General relativity is really a model of a type of Aether called space-time fabric.No mechanism about Gravity is given in the Theory.However Gravity effect can be calculated ,as per G.R.,in terms of curvature of space in the presence of mass.

Similar gravitational power results can also be calculated as curvature of mass rather than space.

General relativity was pounced upon by Quantum Mechanics protagonists.However they did not realize that the idea of Gravity in terms of space curvature really applies to micro masses as well.

The problem that there had been very little success about a Unified theory is that just as Michelson & Morley ,they looked in the wrong place for a mechanism of gravity which would link electromagnetism into one phenomena and General mathematical formula.

Eisntein has been given credit for his volumenous work on Physics and certainly has not been discredited for that commendable feat in modern times.

The problem about Physics is that there are some who believe that science can give all the answer about the mysteries of the Universe which was set by our Creator.
Where in reality we are barely scratching the surface.and what we observe is not always what it seems.
Presently there are more theories which have superceded Einsteins but only few have conflicted with Relativity.

Answer 5

No way. But science continuously corrects itself via new research.
Similar to the way Newton's laws are still valid, but Einstein made some discoveries that showed at what point Newton's laws break down.
The same thing will happen to corrections made to Einstein's laws and theories. It's a work in progress and we have barely started the journey!

Answer 6

If anything, now that technology has caught up, his theories are being confirmed to even higher standards of precision. Some of the original "confirmations" were simply a case of finding what the scientists were looking for, but in modern times enough independent experiments have been done to confirm them all. Even what Einstein mistakenly called his biggest mistake has been recalled for further evaluation. The cosmological constant may have been put in as a fudge factor and then removed, but now observations and theories seem to require the constant after all.

Answer 7

No, not discredited. Added to perhaps. Einstein did not forsee a lot of the quantum physics discovered since his death. Most of Einstein's theories are still considered to be valid.

Answer 8

On the contrary. Special relativity is now a done deal: we know that it's right. General relativity isn't quite as solidly established, but it's looking better and better; the one thing that would put it as a done deal would be to directly detect gravity waves: there's been a considerable amount of experimenting, but no conclusive results yet. However, slowing rotation of pulsars due to gravitational radiation is a good clue that general relativity is correct.

Answer 9

There's a lot of argument over his string theory, but it is causing others to come up with alternative theory ideas. He suggested that God is the dark matter that holds everything together and hasn't yet been defined (or seen). His amazing relativity and gravity studies are mind-blowing concepts. I eagerly await the findings concerning his string theory. Quantum physics is truly magic.

Answer 10

Heinz M is correct. Einstein showed us that at very high speeds Newton's laws do not apply.