Scientists test the famous physicist’s predictions by calculating the distortion of time and space.
Why is the expansion of the Universe accelerating? Even 25 years after its discovery, this remains one of science’s most profound mysteries. Unraveling it requires scrutinizing the fundamental laws of physics, including Albert Einstein’s general relativity. Researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) and Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier recently analyzed data from the Dark Energy Survey to compare Einstein’s predictions with observed cosmic phenomena. They identified a slight discrepancy that changes across different eras of the Universe’s history.
Published in Nature Communications, these findings raise questions about the ability of Einstein’s theories to fully explain the behavior of the Universe on the largest scales.
Einstein’s Equations Collide With the Mysteries of the Universe
Albert Einstein’s theory suggests that the Universe is warped by matter, much like a flexible sheet bends under a heavy object. These distortions, created by the gravitational pull of massive celestial bodies, are called “gravitational wells.” When light travels through this uneven landscape, its path bends as it passes through these wells, similar to how a glass lens redirects light. But here, it’s gravity—not glass—that bends the light. This effect is known as “gravitational lensing.”
Observing gravitational lensing helps scientists understand the composition, history, and expansion of the Universe. The first measurement of this effect, taken during a solar eclipse in 1919, confirmed Einstein’s prediction of light deflection—twice as large as what Isaac Newton’s theory suggested. This discrepancy arose because Einstein introduced a groundbreaking concept: that time, as well as space, is distorted by gravity, creating the precise curvature that bends light.
Validating Universal Theories Through Modern Data
Are these equations still valid at the edge of the Universe? This question is being explored by many scientists seeking to quantify the density of matter in the cosmos and to understand the acceleration of its expansion. Using data from the Dark Energy Survey—a project mapping the shapes of hundreds of millions of galaxies—a team from the universities of Geneva (UNIGE) and Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier is providing new insights.
“Until now, Dark Energy Survey data have been used to measure the distribution of matter in the Universe. In our study, we used this data to directly measure the distortion of time and space, enabling us to compare our findings with Einstein’s predictions,” says Camille Bonvin, associate professor in the Department of Theoretical Physics at the UNIGE Faculty of Science, who led the research.
A Slight Discrepancy
The Dark Energy Survey data allow scientists to look deep into space and, therefore, far into the past. The French-Swiss team analyzed 100 million galaxies at four different points in the Universe’s history: 3.5, 5, 6, and 7 billion years ago. These measurements revealed how gravitational wells have evolved over time, covering more than half of the cosmos’s history.
“We discovered that in the distant past — 6 and 7 billion years ago — the depth of the wells aligns well with Einstein’s predictions. However, closer to today, 3.5 and 5 billion years ago, they are slightly shallower than predicted by Einstein,” reveals Isaac Tutusaus, assistant astronomer at the Institute of Research in Astrophysics and Planetology (IRAP/OMP) at Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier and the study’s lead author.
It is also during this period, closer to today, that the expansion of the Universe began to accelerate. Therefore, the answer to two phenomena—the acceleration of the Universe and the slower growth of gravitational wells—may be the same: gravity could operate under different physical laws at large scales than those predicted by Einstein.
Challenging Einstein?
“Our results show that Einstein’s predictions have an incompatibility of 3 sigma with measurements. In the language of physics, such an incompatibility threshold arouses our interest and calls for further investigations. But this incompatibility is not large enough, at this stage, to invalidate Einstein’s theory. For that to happen, we would need to reach a threshold of 5 sigma. It is therefore essential to have more precise measurements to confirm or refute these initial results, and to find out whether this theory remains valid in our Universe, at very large distances,” emphasizes Nastassia Grimm, postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Theoretical Physics at UNIGE and co-author of the study.
The team is preparing to analyze new data from the Euclid space telescope, launched a year ago. As Euclid observes the Universe from space, its measurements of gravitational lensing will be significantly more precise. Additionally, it is expected to observe about 1.5 billion galaxies within the six years of the mission. This will enable more accurate measurements of space-time distortions, allowing us to look further back in time and ultimately test Einstein’s equations.
Reference: “Measurement of the Weyl potential evolution from the first three years of dark energy survey data” by Isaac Tutusaus, Camille Bonvin and Nastassia Grimm, 11 November 2024, Nature Communications.
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-53363-6
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23 Comments
Does measure the distortion of time and space means ending nor beginning?
Point of measurement starting from zero?
Back to beginning?
Again?
In 1801 Thomas Young performed his first now classical “double-slit” experiment with light, mistakenly finding a ‘duality’ of particles and waves. That single mistake has turned into a self-replicating ‘glitch’ in all of physics. My own lay findings on the true nature of gravity in 2009, in conjunction with my first recorded and uploaded demonstration video in 2012, should have convinced scientists by now that my version of gravity is the correct one. Instead, all it proved was that in the minds of scientists professional dogma is superior to lay reality (“1Gravity:” https://odysee.com/@charlesgshaver:d/1Gravity:8).
They laughed, the f o o l s !
If they are “lay” instead of peer review published, they are not findings.
The classical particle/wave models of non-relativistic quantum mechanics have been fixed in relativistic quantum field theory where the wavicle resonant ripple disturbances properties are neither fully particle nor fully wave, The alleged “duality” paradox when away generations ago, not that popular media has much noticed that.
A well established particle physicist says this:
“From the perspective of quantum field theory, as I’ve outlined here, a wavicle does have features of both waves and particles, but it also lacks features of both waves and particles. For this reason, I would personally prefer to say that it is neither one. I don’t think it’s useful to say that it is both wave and particle, or to say that it is sometimes wave and sometimes particle. It’s simply something else.”
https://profmattstrassler.com/2024/07/09/particles-waves-and-wavicles/
As I’ve previously stated a few times here and there, I don’t like to rain on anyone else’s parade. However, in accord with some of what I learned and practiced as a primarily diagnostic industrial electrician spanning some thirty years, the farther I find science straying from reality the more I’m inclined to try to fix what’s broke.
I deliberately describe myself as “lay” because I lack professional credentials. However, where in life does it say only a ‘pro’ can make a ‘discovery?’ Did the first human to cook food on a fire have a Masters in nutrition and a PhD in thermodynamics? And, I don’t have any peers I’m aware of. My accidental discovery of the true nature of gravity was an unexpected ‘output’ from the bio-supercomputer between my ears, some thirty-four years after I started learning and practicing secular mind power methods for self-improvement. My ‘proofs’ (including ‘repulsion’) are demonstrated in reproducible experiments, not fanciful mathematical formulas devised and calculated to fit a preconceived notion, hypothesis or theory.
Since, I’ve had to draw upon what I’ve learned formally, experientially and experimentally to infer that gravity is induced in all matter by some still unidentified higher force to radiate across the universe in coherent pulsing angular coiling and spiraling lines of force that are attractive perpendicular to their length (like a magnetic field around an energized wire) and diminish in density and strength in accord with the inverse square law of attraction. I postulate that higher force is, perhaps, reverberations of the Big Bang.
As to Professor Matt Strassler’s “wavicles,” it appears he too needs to learn of pulsing angular lines of gravity force jiggling ‘particles’ (packets of energy; quanta?) around in double-slit experiments. I plan to keep writing of my “lay findings” until someone proves my model of gravity wrong, if possible; let me know.
News alert: there are people with the capacity for extraordinary thought who are not a product of your industrialized Scientist Factories.
Those “Professional Academics” exist in an echo chamber that their schooling has confined upon their minds.
Lacking creative thought and adhering to rigid “tHiS iS hOw The UniVerSe wOrks” mentality is not what has propelled our civilization towards greater advancement and understanding of the world and universe around and within us.
Arrogance in Science is not just unbecoming, it’s an egotistical limitation.
Well stated.
“space-time distortions”
Easily repaired through beer goggles, I’ll tell you that much.
Question ? Why do humans keep tormenting themselves with trying to prove time is an object , if I were to say that Einstein had a great mind but for him to involve time as a object rather than a recordable point of evolutional cayouse in the universe and that was his only fault of the theory of relativity , most physicists would fight the inevitable truth and keep trying to prove otherwise , all I can say is they are driving themselves kookoo like as in laughable . Humans can record time in several different ways but to even think time is manipulative other than setting up a chain of events just doesn’t exist . A simple thought is time , a ray of light is time , a picture on the wall is time , a recording of sound is time , all those and even what is before and outside the universe’s existence is time . pure measurement of recordable points that even time will change in meaning or be erased . To use time as a tool would fit the meaning better .
Simplify
Shorten
Improve accuracy
“cayouse”
Time is a helicopter?
Who tries to “prove” [which is math, not physics] that time is an object instead of the process of clocks (harmonic resonators)? And what is the relation to the presented research?
I want my warphole!
Isaac Newton would predict zero deflection of light by the sun. Because the mass of light is 0, the universal law of gravity says 0 force, thus zero deflection. It is only by reinterprwting gravity as a velocity field newtonian physics would predict any deflection of light.
Newton discovered the law of gravity, but he didn’t concern himself with gravitational light refraction.
“Henry Cavendish in 1784 (in an unpublished manuscript) and Johann Georg von Soldner in 1801 (published in 1804) had pointed out that Newtonian gravity predicts that starlight will bend around a massive object.[19][20] The same value as Soldner’s was calculated by Einstein in 1911 based on the equivalence principle alone. However, Einstein noted in 1915 in the process of completing general relativity, that his 1911 result (and thus Soldner’s 1801 result) is only half of the correct value. Einstein became the first to calculate the correct value for light bending: 1.75 arcseconds for light that grazes the Sun.[21][22]” – Wikipedia
From reference 22:
“Hopefully no one finds it problematic, that I treat a light ray almost as a ponderable body. That light rays possess all absolute properties of matter, can be seen at the phenomenon of aberration, which is only possible when light rays are really material. — And furthermore, we cannot think of things that exist and act on our senses, without having the properties of matter.”
[Astronomical aberration was at the time a somewhat confused understanding of observations, c.f. Wikipedia on “Aberration (astronomical)”.]
It seems you are reinterpreting the newtonian gravity potential field as “a velocity field” [? How?] and consider the modern observation of massless photons as that they would not obey a force law.
“Research into gravitational lensing, where light bends around massive objects, aligns with Einstein’s predictions from billions of years ago.”
Really? Never heard before that Einstein had been around *that* long ago!
Betteridge’s law of headlines applies, since the answer to “Is the Universe Defying Einstein?” was “No! due to lack of significance.
Meanwhile LCDM excels in other surveys, such as the SPT telescope observation of the cosmic microwave background radiation polarization. It also increases the tension with supernova higher Hubble rate estimates to over 5 sigma, and increases the rejection of an inverted neutrino mass hierarchy. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-latest-south-pole-telescope-bolster.html
Einstein not wrong. Scientist just forgot about energy release at 25 – 50 light years per second that help Universe expansion faster from BlackHole.
BlackHoles the Natural Universe Whirl Pool Sling Shot of Energy.
How dares the Universe be so rude to a dead dude?
I read the comments here, and I can immediately identify all the people who get into wicked, destructive family arguments at Thanksgiving Dinner over the grammar and syntax rules of Klingon.
I’ve stated on this platform and others that gravity waves present throughout the Universe should shallow out the further you get from the singularity we call the Big Bang. This data does nothing to change my insights of the universe.
As we look further back in tme, with regards to the velocity of light, what respect to local gravitational and velocity time dialation properties is obsevred? Is it a linear cumulative progression, or is the rate of time diiation cancelled out by voids of space with nothingness.
Is time diation, a proven property of our universe an i cosistent and overlooked variable that we falsely accredit to dark energy/matter?
The auther of this article nor the research paper account for this.