Brian cox's general relativity challenge – ‘need a better theory’

The general theory of relativity was published by Albert Einstein more than a century ago, to refine Isaac Newton’s law of universal gravitation. Providing a unified description of gravity

as a geometric property of space and time, or spacetime, this model is still currently used by scientists as a description of gravitation in modern physics. Einstein’s theory has important

astrophysical implications as it alludes to the existence of black holes – regions of space in which space and time are distorted in such a way that nothing, not even light, can escape.

However, Brian Cox revealed how these cosmic phenomena are challenging everything scientists thought they knew. He told Australia’s Science Channel in 2019: “Black holes are interesting,

they’re really weird. “In the last couple of years, we’ve entered a new age of astronomy where we can watch black holes behave. “To describe them properly, and to describe the collisions,

you start to need to get a better version of Einstein’s theory. “I don’t think we know, when the Milky Way and Andromeda collide, whether the black holes will merge, but we certainly know

there’s an interaction between the galaxies. “My guess is they probably will eventually, it may be that they will inevitably merge in trillions of years, but we do know what happens when

black holes collide because we’ve observed it.” Professor Cox went on to explain why Hawking’s Radiation, predicted to be released by black holes due to quantum effects, could be key to

developing Einstein’s theory. He added: “Our latest detectors, so-called gravitational wave detectors, which detects, unbelievably, ripples in the fabric of the universe, ripples in space

and time from the collisions of objects like black holes. “We’ve seen several occurrences in the universe where black holes have collided with each other and merged. READ MORE: ISAAC NEWTON

WRONG? SCIENTISTS QUESTIONING 300-YEAR-OLD LAW AFTER THEORY ‘BROKE DOWN’ He continued: “That’s merging the laws of quantum mechanics with the laws of how atoms and molecules behave with

Einstein’s theory of gravity. “That’s probably the biggest challenge in theoretical physics, to merge those two theories together. “No one has been able to do it yet, but the first steps

were taken by thinking about black holes. “That really links into describing the origin of the universe, the Big Bang, or what happened before the Big Bang. “Ultimately, we need a better

theory than Einstein’s and black holes are probably the testing ground at the moment for such a theory.”