Einstein and his theory of relativity is a keystone in physical science, providing the groundwork for countless other theories and mathematical truisms. However, as astronomers and physicists use more advanced tools to look at more distant and unexplainable phenomena in space, things are starting to get out of step with E=mc2 .
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00:00 Einstein's theory of relativity is a keystone in physical science, providing the groundwork
00:09 for countless other theories and mathematical truisms.
00:11 However, as astronomers and physicists use more advanced tools to look at more distant
00:16 and unexplainable phenomena in space, things are starting to get out of step with E=mc2.
00:21 The theory of relativity outlines how the curvature of space-time results in the existence
00:25 of gravity.
00:26 However, this new study reveals that as objects get larger and larger, like at the scale of
00:30 massive galactic clusters, gravity's pull weakens at that scale.
00:34 Experts have begun referring to this breakdown as the "cosmic glitch," outlining specifically
00:38 how gravity loses about 1% of its power as the cosmic superstructure approaches a threshold.
00:43 And this all happened by accident while observing cosmic microwave background data.
00:47 Their observations just didn't match what was expected as outlined in Einstein's theory
00:51 when observing extremely large objects.
00:53 So they manipulated the math to account for a 1% deviation, and suddenly, everything lined
00:58 up.
00:59 The researchers implore that this doesn't change anything with regards to math that
01:02 already works with the theory of relativity.
01:04 However, this could help astronomers explain Hubble tension or the conflict between the
01:08 expansion rates of the nearby and distant universe, perhaps finally solving a long-standing
01:14 conundrum.
01:15 [music]