a handful of readers and I go our own dogged way, exchanging emails about Albert E. Here’s an email that explained a lot (I’d had no idea that relativity was so untested):
One of the big problems with Einstein’s General and
Special Theories of Relativity has always been our
ability to test them. In fact, Einstein won the Nobel
Prize for his work on the photoelectric effect, not
relativity, because nobody at the time could test such
things (1905, by the way, was a good year for Einstein
– he published work on relativity, explained the
photoelectric effect using the wave interpretation of
light photons, and invented the theory of Brownian
motion).
Subsequently, we’ve been slowly able to test some of
the assumptions about relativity. These have included
deflections of the positions of stars by the Sun’s
gravity, aberrations in the orbit of the planet
Mercury, and gravatational lensing by extremely heavy
objects. In fact, the GPS system wouldn’t work
without relativity — all the positions and times
would be off.
The fundamental problem with testing relativity lies
in the fact that it deals with extreme situations –
high energy and large mass. These are conditions that
are difficult to replicate, as we can’t just whip up
neutron stars in a test tube. To measure the effects
of relativity on Earth, we need extremely precise
measuring equipment, again not a trivial feat.
There are a lot of things that to date, we can’t
explain, which suggests that relativity may not be
complete, or that our interpretations of it are not
correct. For example, if you’re familiar with the
whole dark matter/energy debate, some suggest that our
inability to explain things is primarily the fault of
an incomplete understanding of relativity and
gravitation (there are other explanations, too).
So, suffice it to say, there’s more testing to do.
Which, of course, seems to be a scientist’s answer to
anything. 🙂