According to the “experience” of Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of the 20th century, if one wishes to become famous, one should speak and write in a way that no one understands.
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Albert Einstein with his genius invention in the Theory of Relativity, describing the relationship between energy (E), mass (m), and the speed of light (c). |
This opinion was expressed in 2005, coinciding with the 100th anniversary of the invention of the Theory of Relativity (1905-2005).
When Einstein’s Theory of Relativity was first published, only a few people understood the theory. However, the author of this theory became a household name worldwide.
Today, a century after the Theory of Relativity was published, scientific progress has advanced far beyond 1905, yet the number of people who truly understand this scientific theory remains very small.
In the UK and the US, when asked, “Who would you like to clone first?”, Albert Einstein consistently ranks at the top of the list, followed by other outstanding figures in science, politics, and the arts.
Also in 2005, scientists involved in the “Supernova Legacy Survey” announced results of their research on stars located 2-8 billion light years away, revealing fascinating discoveries that prove Albert Einstein and his Theory of Relativity are not only complex but also contain numerous mysteries about this extraordinary scientist’s genius.
The story goes that when developing the Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein discovered a mathematical equation that describes the harmonious balance of the universe, which included a constant he called the cosmological constant.
According to Albert Einstein, the universe is a balanced and harmonious system, and he intended to construct a scientific theory that could explain all natural phenomena.
He referred to this as the Unified Field Theory. However, later astronomical observations demonstrated that the universe is expanding at an increasing rate and is not in balance. Consequently, Einstein decided to remove the cosmological constant from the very equations he had devised.
In the 1990s, long after Einstein’s death, researchers discovered the existence of dark energy, a type of anti-gravitational force that pushes matter apart.
This means that objects in nature are not only “attracted” to each other by gravitational force but also repel each other. From this discovery, scientists hoped to explain the phenomenon of accelerating cosmic expansion. However, as of now, no one has been able to provide an accurate definition of what dark energy is.
One hypothesis suggests it exists in the form of special particles. Meanwhile, scientists involved in the project assert that dark energy is very similar to the cosmological constant, existing everywhere in space and time.
Observational results from scientists working at various telescopes around the world have allowed the detection of explosions from supernovae billions of light years away.
By measuring the distance, brightness, and spectrum of these stars, astronomers confirmed that the effect of dark energy remains unchanged regardless of the distance to any object in the universe.
When scientists incorporated the collected data on dark energy into the state equation that describes the relationship between pressure and matter density in the universe, they discovered that dark energy could be represented as a constant nearly equal to Einstein’s cosmological constant!
Excited and thrilled by this unexpected research outcome, astronomers working on the project plan to continue measuring for a while longer to enhance the accuracy of their measurements, hoping to bring the constant reflecting dark energy closer to Einstein’s cosmological constant.
From this, scientists realized that Einstein’s original mathematical equation held an astonishingly brilliant prediction—one that even he himself did not believe in.
Thus, it was Albert Einstein, nearly 100 years ago, who mathematically described the existence of dark energy through a quantity he termed the cosmological constant.
Interestingly, nearly 100 years ago, when he discarded the cosmological constant from his own mathematical equation, Albert Einstein referred to it as the “most foolish mistake” of his life!
Little did he know that nearly a century later, this “most foolish mistake” would turn out to be one of the most brilliant and mysterious predictions in the entire history of human science.
Lê Minh
