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… all of the available constraints on the validity of the founding principles of SR and GR have so far failed to crack any faults in these century-old theories, which thus remains the standard against all competitors so far.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Orfeu Bertolami and Jorge P\u00e1ramos in<\/em> [1]<\/p>\n
I like the above quote. It is rather an inescapable that Einsteinian relativity works well.<\/p>\n
Objections to relativity<\/strong>
\nI posted, about a year ago now, on the experimental status of Einsteinian relativity, you can read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\nWhatever the faults with general and special relativity, philosophical or real, today we have no other theory of space, time and gravity that has the experimental success of Einstein’s theories.<\/p>\n
Most of the “objections” to special and general relativity stem from not really understanding what the theory is saying, or indeed what a theory really is. Analogies<\/a> and popular science accounts seem to also be the root of a lot of misunderstandings.<\/p>\n
Other good references on the experimental status of relativity include [2,3,4].<\/p>\n
The failings of general relativity<\/strong>
\nIt is not true that anyone really expects general relativity to be the final say on gravity. The issues as they stand include:<\/p>\n\n
- The existence of singularities<\/li>\n
- The cosmological constant problem<\/li>\n
- Incompatibility with standard quantisation methods<\/li>\n
- Dark energy<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
All these problems only really tell us that general relativity is not a complete theory in the sense that there is physics that it cannot accurately explain.\u00a0 This is not grounds for dismissing general relativity as it is a very accurate model of gravity for a huge range of phenomena.<\/p>\n
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References <\/strong>
\n[1] Orfeu Bertolami and Jorge P\u00e1ramos, The experimental status of Special and General Relativity, arXiv:1212.2177v1 [gr-qc]<\/p>\n[2]Orfeu Bertolami, Jorge P\u00e1ramos, and Slava G. Turyshev. General theory of relativity: Will it survive the next decade? In Lasers, Clocks, and Drag-Free: Technologies for Future Exploration in Space and Tests of Gravity<\/em>. Springer Verlag, 2006; gr-qc\/0602016.<\/p>\n
[3]Clifford M. Will. The confrontation between general relativity and experiment. Living Reviews in Relativity<\/em>, 9<\/strong>(3), 2006.<\/p>\n
[4]Will, Clifford M. (2006). Was Einstein Right? Testing Relativity at the Centenary. Annalen der Physik<\/em> 15<\/strong>: 19\u201333<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
… all of the available constraints on the validity of the founding principles of SR and GR have so far failed to crack any faults in these century-old theories, which thus remains the standard against all competitors so far. Orfeu Bertolami and Jorge P\u00e1ramos in [1] I like the above quote. It is rather an … Continue reading Take that Einstein…I mean, take that cranks!<\/span>