The Man Who Corrected Einstein

This video is about how Russian physicist Aleksandr Fridman corrected Albert Einstein about the expansion of the universe. Einstein thought that general relativity implied that space had to be static and unchanging, but he had made a technical error regarding the differentiation of the metric (in particular, I believe he mistook the determinant of the metric for a scalar rather than a tensor density of weight 2). Friedmann didn't make this differential geometric mistake, and the cosmologies he found from the Einstein Equations were more varied in their properties - they could be expanding, or contracting, or (with the cosmological constant), static.

REFERENCES

Alexander Friedmann

Einstein Wrongly Criticizes Alexander Friedmann

Alexander Friedmann Corrects Einstein

Einstein Admits his Mathematical Mistake

Interrogating the Legend of Einstein’s “Biggest Blunder”

Cosmological Considerations in the General Theory of Relativity

On the General Theory of Relativity (Einstein)

The Field Equations of Gravitation

The Einstein Field Equations

Presentation about the Sequence of Events

Tensor Densities:

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Minute Physics provides an energetic and entertaining view of old and new problems in physics -- all in a minute!

Created by Henry Reich

[BenjiM]

“Someone proved Einstein wrong” *when the two smartest kids in the class have different answers*

[malvinmalvin]

"What biases do you have?"
I don't have any biases, at all. I am completely unbiased, and everyone who says otherwise must therefore be wrong.

[architt]

I love your Einstein's stick figure with that hair

[MelissaJetzt]

My senior physics capstone project in undergrad was on quantum locality and contextuality, particularly looking at various proofs and disproofs of Bell's Theorem. Which was very confusing as an undergrad, trying not only to learn the proper math and physics behind what I was studying but carefully combing through the logic of the proofs and disproofs to figure out what was right or wrong. My advisor thought it would be an interesting project because there's a guy who is regarded by most in the field as a quack who is very adamant about his disproofs. Even navigating the academic politics of that was tricky.

In some ways, I kinda wish I saved that for grad school instead but I digress. It gave me an interesting perspective on what is true and false in physics. And it was a major exercise in trying to distance myself from both the bias to agree with Einstein and the bias to disagree with the critic. Everyone wants to agree with Einstein because he came up with what is now a critical part of physics. But as you say, even he was human. He made mistakes. We all do. In that way, I think the best scientists among us are the level-headed ones with enough empathy to clearly separate correctness from popular biases.

I just wish academia could be less political. And physics, especially, to be less egotistical. It is a plague.

[FullersFlexing]

"even geniuses make mistakes"
*Yes, yes I do.*

[johnchessant]

"If you don't want to make silly math mistakes like Einstein, try Brilliant"

[fgremmelspacher]

Einstein made a mistake.

Me (struggling with medium math): "Heh...what a loser."

[TheYeetiest]

"The Friedmann Solution"
Einstein: ;_;

[meldeebueno]

At least Einstein admitted his mistake. Like a true scientist would.

[danb]

We can say Einstein had an algebruh moment



Aight imma head out

[domainofscience]

Great video! It is good to (try) and be aware of our biases. Anyone else notice that our biases seem to get more entrenched the older we get? Sometimes I tell an older person something different to what they believe, and it is like they have not even heard me.

[spiderman]

This is one of the best minutephysics videos I've watched in a while

[Pimp]

Even geniuses make mistake...learn, don’t be arrogant

[gildardorivasvalles]

This is incorrect: Einstein realized the equations of General Relativity *implied* an expanding universe. He added the "cosmological constant" to the equations of GR to obtain the solution of a static universe, which is what everyone thought was the case, and *at the time* there was no reason to assume otherwise. The observations WERE NOT good enough to determine the universe was expanding -- those came in the 1920's, or about a decade later. Friedman simply obtained the solutions Einstein had obtained and did not make any extra assumptions. Einstein then considered adding the cosmological constant his "biggest blunder." You're misrepresenting the development of the ideas about cosmology that stemmed from GR.

[curious_one]

Friedmann was "relatively" correct compared to Einstein.

[markoschatziathanasiou]

You mean the man who corrected Einstein




*but was actually right*

[KyuVulpes]

How I think everyone should think, "How can I disprove myself, then how can I disprove that?"

[yoda]

Usually love your stuff, but this is a really rough interpretation of the history here.

In Historian Walter Issacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe (a very well sourced academic biography written with Einstein's own notebooks) The generation of the Cosmological constant came about because Einstein knew the equations he generated caused expansion/contraction and the current experimental picture said that wasn't the case. (Chapter 11 pg254 of the kindle version)

His blunder was not sticking to his original mathematical guns and predicting a non-static universe, because he literally had it. Not salt about a bad derivative or whatever

[madlad]

0:48 'He plugged in empty space' Ah yes, as you do.

[gymcapybara]

Einsteins equation was so complicated that the first man to actually be able to use it correctly got an entire concept named after him.