Cosmic glitch contradicts Einstein’s general relativity; understand

A team of scientists from the University of Waterloo and the University of British Columbia, both in Canada, announced the discovery of a type of cosmic flaw in the forces involving gravity in the universe. The article points out that, although Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity explains many behaviors caused by gravity, there are some inconsistencies on the cosmic scale of galaxy clusters and other celestial phenomena.

Einstein himself knew that his theory of relativity did not completely explain the gravity of the universe; after all, science still needs to understand much more about our reality. In fact, the University of Waterloo is a reference in gravitational research, where physicists and astronomers are trying to create a mathematical model to explain these peculiarities.

Galaxies move faster when they are in the most distant regions of the galaxy; the speed can reach close to that of light. This is the cosmic flaw. For this reason, scientists claim that Einstein’s theory of relativity may be insufficient to explain all gravity processes in the universe, and therefore, they proposed a new mathematical model to try to solve the puzzle.

The study’s lead author and recent Waterloo Mathematical Physics graduate, Robin Wen, said: “This model of gravity has been essential to everything from Big Bang theorizing to black hole photography. But when we try to understand gravity At the cosmic scale, at the scale of galaxy clusters and beyond, we find apparent inconsistencies with the predictions of general relativity. It is almost as if gravity itself no longer corresponds perfectly to Einstein’s theory.”

“We’re calling this inconsistency a ‘cosmic glitch’: gravity becomes about one percent weaker when dealing with distances on the order of billions of light years,” Wen adds.

Cosmological failure and gravity

In an official statement from the University of Waterloo, researchers state that the new model developed in the study made changes and expanded Einstein’s mathematical formulas about gravity. In any case, it is important to note that only minor changes were made regarding the size and complexity of the theory of general relativity.

The cosmic fault presents inconsistencies with the predictions of the theory of general relativity, proposed by Albert Einstein. Source: Getty Images

Scientists also declared that the new model can be considered just a note, something like the first clue in a cosmic puzzle of our universe. In other words, it is still necessary to study more to get closer to a conclusive answer. The article was published in the scientific journal Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.

“We investigated a model that modifies general relativity on cosmological scales, specifically by having a ‘glitch’ in the gravitational constant between the cosmological (superhorizon) and Newtonian (subhorizon) regimes. Therefore, the extra parametric freedom offered by our model deserves further exploration, and we discuss how future observations could elucidate this potential cosmic flaw in gravity through a fourfold reduction in statistical uncertainties,” the paper explains.

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