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Why Einstein (Probably) Isn’t Wrong
Scientists have found a way to map the invisible Universe. What they see is helping to prove Einstein mostly right.
Several stories came out last week claiming scientists had once again proven Einstein wrong. They haven’t, of course, though they might have found a bit more evidence that one day leads to a new theory of physics. More interesting than the headlines are the details of the study itself and how they managed to map something we can’t see or detect: dark matter.
The trigger for these stories was the latest data release from the Dark Energy Survey, a project to map millions of galaxies, supernova and other cosmic structures. In doing so, the researchers hope they will uncover traces of dark energy, a mysterious force that seems to be driving the expansion of the universe.
That data seemed to hint that something was slightly wrong with our cosmological models. Matter is more evenly spread out — smoother — than it should be, at least according to predictions. That points to a flaw in the models and, perhaps, in Einstein’s equations.
The model in question is known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter(ΛCDM) model. It assumes a few things — notably the accuracy of Einstein’s theory of relativity, the existence of dark matter and dark…
