Einstein, Relativity, and his Personal Bias

Einstein, Relativity, and his Personal Bias

Resistance to the Big Bang existed even before the theory was formulated. Efforts to avoid the
conclusion of the Big Bang, that the universe had a beginning, were already in full swing when
Einstein developed his theory of general relativity, back in 1916. Einstein had been busy
working out a new theory of gravity that would render Isaac Newton’s theory of universal
gravity an incorrect description. This was quite an audacious move on Einstein’s part,
considering the 250 years of stunning success of Newton’s universal gravity in describing orbital
motion in our solar system. Astronomical events such as eclipses can be predicted accurately in
advance for hundreds of years or pinpointed backwards in ancient times. But Newton’s theory of
gravity was suspected to be inexact where gravity is very strong, such as very near to our Sun.
Irregularities in the orbit of planet Mercury could not be explained by Newtonian gravity.
Contrary to Newton’s view of time, Einstein had already shown with his theory of special
relativity in 1905 that time could not be considered the same for all observers in the universe.
There really isn’t any absolute universal clock, since measurements of time depend on an
observer’s reference frame. Comparing measurements made in one reference frame to those
made in another frame moving rapidly relative to the first one reveals differences in the lengths
of objects and the times between ticks of a clock. This has been verified to high accuracy by
many experiments. Space and time are intertwined in such a way that we refer to both together
as space-time. An excellent introduction to relativity limited to algebra can be found in reference
[13]. But the theory of special relativity only considers reference frames moving at constant
speeds relative to each other, and therefore does not include gravity, where acceleration exists.
However, Einstein believed that since Newton’s concept of universal time was incorrect, his
universal gravity must also be reformulated, since it incorporates the concept of universal time.
After 10 more years of intense work, Einstein finally had a complete theory of relativity, one that
included acceleration and gravity, as equivalent concepts. As promised, general relativity only
agreed with Newton’s universal gravity where gravity is weak, which holds true for the motion
of most objects in our solar system. But where gravity is strong or in considering a vaster scale
of the universe, the theories prove radically different. General relativity connects the properties
of space-time to its proximity to matter. High concentrations of mass warp space-time in such a
way as to effectively change the measurement of distances and time for observers at varying
proximity to it, even if they are not moving relative to one another. On the large-scale universe,
the mass density of the universe determines the overall curvature or warping of space-time.


Einstein, who had remarkable insight into the physical significance of his theory, began to apply
the equations of general relativity to the universe itself, and soon found himself facing a
dilemma. He recognized that in solving the equations of general relativity, if nothing exists to
counteract the attractive force of gravity, then a static universe is not possible. In other words,
gravity would serve to either pull the entire universe back together, or to slow it down if it were
expanding. Einstein later admitted as “the greatest blunder” of his scientific career, his insertion
of a term into the equations that had absolutely no observational basis, a term referred to as the
cosmological constant. His reason is clear. The only way to get a static universe solution, in
accordance with his philosophical inclination, was to have something counteract gravity. The
cosmological constant would serve as this mechanism, even though there was no other reason to
invoke it. It represents a pressure derived from the energy of space-time itself. Popular science
journals have recently been making bold claims that Einstein has been vindicated; since it now
appears that the cosmological constant is actually non-zero [14]. However, this is somewhat
misleading, since Einstein’s intent was to show that the universe could be static, which
eventually proved to be incorrect.