Einstein's blunder explains one of the greatest scientific revelations

Brian Greene, Columbia University physicist and co-founder of the World Science Festival, explains how today's physicists and mathematicians use an Einsteinian formula to explain the universe that Einstein himself originally thought was false.

You can learn more fascinating science at this year's 10th annual World Science Festival in NYC taking place from May 30-June 4. Following is a transcript of the video.

The amazing thing is that blunder in Einstein’s mind is something that we now believe describes the actual universe.

Einstein became Einstein really because of his discovery of the general theory of relativity in 1915. The core of it are the Einstein field equations. And that’s a set of equations that relate the curvature of spacetime to the amount of matter and energy moving through a region of spacetime.

Interesting when Einstein applied theses equations to the entire universe, he found a result that he wasn’t happy with. He found that the universe could not be static and unchanging. It had to be either stretching or contracting.

And he said, “no.” The universe is clearly static and eternal. So what did he do? He went back to the equations.Put in one more term. On the left hand side he put in lambda. Lambda is what’s called the cosmological constant. He called it the cosmological member. And what it does is it can kind of give an outward push that can stabilize the inward pull of gravity, resulting in a static universe.And then Einstein was happy. Right?

But then in 1929 we learn that the universe is expanding and Einstein says,

Ugh, I wish I would not have put that term in.

Because my equations predicted that the universe is expanding and I would have gotten there 12 years before the observations. Today the amazing thing is that blunder in Einstein’s mind is something that we now believe describes the actual universe.

Because when we found that the accelerated expansion is happening, we want something that can push everything apart. What can do that?Einstein’s cosmological constant pushes things apart. We employ a different value.A different number than Einstein would have thought. But the idea is exactly what Einstein came up with.

Even Einstein’s bad ideas wind up being pretty darn good.

[ChristopherJing]

When his brain fart is more brilliant than anything you could come up with

[jayceee.]

When you're so smart even your mistake is right.

[gfbtfbtfilyfxbtyewqqef]

Einstein's bad ideas wind up being good
My best ideas wind up being bad

[shouryashukla]

how can anyone be sooo good in physics
i jealous

[drizzylmg]

And here i came out of my additional maths exam where I got a 9 mark question wrong because I wrote 11-2=10



oh ffs

[aggressivetourist]

Physicists: Ok, the formula does not seem appropriate. Let's add one more random constant and variable.
Mathematicians:😱

[Morgow]

It's weird to think about Albert Einstein's intelligence and mind when you also know that they took his brain out and looked at it as a piece of matter no more significant than dirt. The mind and our intelligence that consists in our brain is truly something amazing. How did something such as a brain ever become so sophisticated and complicated in its design from the simple soil of the ground? It is truly amazing such intelligent design and function can consist of organics.

I truly believe there is more intelligent life out there that designed us. The universe is a closed system to this intelligence as a hard drive with its data is also a closed system to our world.

[flyboythefab]

This guy explanation makes sciences look so interesting.

[ififif]

Einstein is one of my favorite people of all time, but I think they're giving him WAY too much credit for this one. Scientists, engineers, economists etc (i.e. anybody who uses applied mathematics to model/describe an aspect of reality) adds or factors in constants into their equations all the time. This is just a basic/common strategy in model building that goes back long before Einstein.

In other words, even if Einstein would have never made this famous blunder, someone else would have EASILY conjured up the idea to add in an extra constant into the modern physics equations to account for this new observation.

[timmy]

I bet you anything Einstein couldn't come up a formula for why the Kardashions are so famous.

[allylilith]

Fun fact:
actually anyone who lived after newton could have come up with the idea that the universe expands, because otherwise it would collapse due to the gravity. Sounds pretty obvious but noone thought about it.

[DiscipleOfChristDV]

Einstein's cosmological constant is called dark energy nowadays.

[debadritoroy]

Hey tech Insider I have a spacetime is getting streched and the universe is expanding, does that mean every point in the universe is expanding? If so then is the distance between the Sun and the Earth increasing? Please do answer this is a serious doubt

[randaechmarter]

Meanwhile me:

ERROR EROR
BRAIN MUST KEEP ON
ERROR ERROR

*Scene where Spongebob's brain people panics*

[lebrechanson]

If inserting lambda made the equation account for the universe expanding. Why would finding out that the universe is expanding make Einstein want to take out lambda?

[raeriques]

My head hurts because i see numbers😳 How can people be so...soo Brilliant! Such geniuses! Mind blown!😨

[hitmebabyonemoretime]

Why a equation can show how space is look like? I mean how???

[saipriyankakodali]

Can someone explain me when Einstein said the universe might be expanding and added the Cosmological member, which gives an outward push? It works only when the universe in contacting right? Or is this cosmological member outward or an inward push? I'm confused!

[cdgt]

The field equation states that E + m = E x m. This is only true in special cases such as 2 + 2 = 2 x 2.

[chenweizhi]

This is very misleading. Friedmann published a paper proving that Einstein had made a Mathematical mistake in his calculations, and that the Einstein Field Equation already predicted a static or expanding or contracting Universe even without the Cosmological Constant. To be clear, it's either expanding at a decelerating rate or contracting at an accelerating rate.

Einstein allegedly called it his 'biggest blunder' as the Cosmological Constant seemed unjustified and ugly, and he felt that he should not have put it in at all. However, it was only until the 1990s that a team of astrophysicists found out that the Universe is expanding at an ACCELERATING rate, which meant that the Cosmological Constant was not zero and that it has a positive value (to act as an 'anti-gravitational force'). They later won the Nobel prize in Physics in 2011 for their discovery.

So in conclusion, the Cosmological Constant was introduced by Einstein purely out of carelessness and was pretty much ignored and was assumed to be zero for decades until the discovery of the Universe's accelerating expansion. The Cosmological Constant was there purely out of a coincidence.