Einstein Might Have Been Wrong About Gravity... Here’s Why

The universe is expanding, and fast. And this new theory could explain why.

The universe is expanding, and that expansion is speeding up... which is the opposite of what we expected.

There are lots of different ideas about what could be causing the inexplicable acceleration of this expansion, and one commonly suspected culprit is something called dark energy. Though historically, we aren’t entirely sure what dark energy is either. But now, we might finally have an explanation.

Professor Claudia de Rham at Imperial College London suggests something pretty radical: that gravity has mass.

In Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, gravitons should be massless, but in de Rham’s proposal, the graviton has mass. And if gravitons have mass, then gravity is expected to have a weaker influence on very large distance scales, explaining why the expansion of the universe hasn’t been reined in.

Find out more about De Rham’s radical theory that could hold the key to why the universe is rapidly expanding and explain the nature of dark energy in this Elements.

Read More:

Did Scientists Finally Solve the Impossible Physics Riddle?
Massive gravity changes Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and it implies some truly wild stuff, like that gravity waves with mass would consequently have momentum.

Has physicist's gravity theory solved 'impossible' dark energy riddle?
"The work marks a breakthrough in a century-long quest to build a working theory of massive gravity. Despite successive efforts, previous versions of the theory had the unfortunate feature of predicting the instantaneous decay of every particle in the universe – an intractable issue that mathematicians refer to as a “ghost”.

Turning gravity upside down
“The beautiful thing about Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that the red flags are built in – we know that, at some point, it will stop working,” says De Rham. "It tells us exactly when it’s breaking down, and when new physics is needed. That doesn’t happen very often in science."
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[CGMushrom]

"Gravity has mass"

Yeah, this is big brain time

[flipride]

Seeker: Einstein is wrong about gravity
Some laboratory a few years later: Einstein is right yet again and here's why...

[huzaifahahmed]

What I learned in Physics: something that has mass has gravity.
What she just said: Gravity has mass.
My brain: Ight imma head out.

[danishaiman]

Last time I was this early Einstein was right

[truckingwithsean]

"In general relativity, gravity is not a force between masses. Instead gravity is an effect of the warping of space and time in the presence of mass" t has long been accepted that gravity is not a force.

[mmikels]

Seeker: Einstein might have been wrong about gravity.
Stephen A: You're wrong and here's why.

[SLGY]

Uhhh, time out. You got doppler effect a bit wrong there. The effect is from the ambulance either moving towards or away from you. Not whether it's close or far away...

[Master_Therion]

We tend to think gravity is easy to explain, we experience every day. But the actual physics of gravity is complicated and full of unknowns. Gravity is a heavy subject.

[AstroGate]

Correction at 0:40 The Doubler Effect is not about how close or far the sound source is! It is about how fast it is moving closer or away from us, such a mistake is silly yet very vital to the scientific concept of this video. Your channel is a trusted source of information on YouTube, and we have huge respect for you here at AstroGate.

[dakotadad]

“It’s the opposite of what we expected” yea, I’d say this happens just about every time humans figure something out and yet we keep acting like we know what we’re talking about. I still LOVE SCIENCE!!

[truejim]

“But we think it might have something to do with dark energy...” I think this is stated very incorrectly. Dark energy is a placeholder name for a cause that we don’t understand. We don’t “think” it has something to do with dark energy, we’re intentionally calling the cause dark energy until we figure out what the cause is.

[nemonomen]

“Gravity has mass” must be the most absurd sentence I’ve ever heard and I love it!

[InfiniteWonderz]

this is one pulled from the archive that didnt make the first cut

[_BlackSpectrum]

One Question : If gravity has mass then why do gravitational waves travels at speed of light ? It shouldn't right ?

[Emcee_Squared]

If the graviton does have mass, then it’s mass will be less than that of the lightest particle, the neutrino, which mass we have still not been able to determine only it’s upper limit, and which also travels at nearly the speed of light. And because neutrinos interact with other matter less than photons, actually arrive at their destination faster, for instance neutrinos from a supernova are detected slightly before the light of the supernova is detected. So perhaps for gravity, given that it interacts with anything which has mass, it’s speed over cosmological distances will be greatly reduced, explaining why the universe expands faster than the speed of light and also why it doesn’t collapse in on itself (the Big Crunch).

[jordancox]

Ehhh this doesn't sound all that promising. I'm putting my money on Einstein.

[ParityCheckT]

When you can't focus on what she's saying because of that code lyoko theme playing in the background

[bruinflight]

"A theory proposed by Claudia Duran..."
"The theory was proposed in the 1930's..."
LOL

[ClueBottle]

This has nothing to do with anything, but with near all of what is being said going over my head, I can't stop thinking of the first two bars of the Code Lyoko theme with this background music

[timothyeyo]

Gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, if gravitons have mass then this should be impossible.