What Einstein Got Wrong

How Einstein's powerful intuition led him astray in several key areas of physics, which are now among the most fruitful areas of the discipline; looking at what he got right, starting with his special theory of relativity.

Einstein's general theory of relativity, which built on special relativity and led to a radically new understanding of the geometry of space and time; the rocky road Einstein followed to this breakthrough; the mistakes that hampered his progress.

Einstein's rejection of the most astounding prediction of general relativity; how the concept of black holes emerged from Einstein's theory and how he dismissed it, even as other researchers examined the theoretical properties of these objects.

Einstein's reluctance to accept the idea that general relativity predicts that objects with mass radiate extremely faint gravitational waves when they interact; the evidence accumulated after Einstein's death of the existence of gravity waves.

Investigating what Einstein reportedly called his biggest blunder, which is his insistence that the universe is static; why general relativity is inconsistent with a static universe; Edwin Hubble's pioneering observations of the cosmos.

Einstein's attempt to make general relativity compatible with a static universe by adding a cosmological constant to his equations; how this mistake looks prescient in light of the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.

Retracing the route to Einstein's proof that light is made up of discrete quanta, an insight that led to the quantum revolution; how Einstein broke out of the classical mode of thinking about light and matter through experimentation.

Einstein's devotion to determinism and how it prompted him to reject the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics; Einstein famously saying that "God does not play dice"; how Einstein sought to find a deterministic version of the theory.

Einstein's quest to overturn the standard view of quantum mechanics known as the Copenhagen interpretation; focusing on his EPR paper, which identifies a paradoxical phenomenon later called entanglement; two proposals to supplant the Copenhagen view.

Einstein spends the last decades of his life searching for a unified field theory; by then, quantum theory has superseded Maxwell's work; yet this quest nonetheless stimulates ideas for unification in proposals such as string theory.

Einstein's friend Kurt Godel discovers a solution that implies the possibility of time travel; Einstein finds this interesting but impossible; whether he is right to dismiss time travel; exploring other solutions to Einstein's equations.

Investigating the mistakes of three great thinkers, who are Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton; despite their triumphs, they sometimes pursue intriguing but false leads; the examples their careers set for how science progresses.