4 Huge Mistakes That Einstein Made In His Entire Life

Einstein was one of the most brilliant physicists of the 20th century and or probably the entire human history. But after all, he was just a human being. And humans make mistakes. Some were announced by Einstein himself while some were pointed out by other scientists. And here are the 4 most well-known mistakes that Einstein made in his life.

1. The cosmological constant – The universe isn’t expanding – The theory of relativity revision

This is considered as Einstein’s biggest mistake. And if you look into this matter, there are a lot of interesting stories surrounding it. When he announced the general relativity, Einstein, just like other scientists at that time, believed that the universe was static, stable, and non-expanding. He, along with Willem de Sitter, tried to adjust and proved the formulas in his theory of relativity used to describe the overall picture of the universe.

Einstein believed that there was another “kind of force” existing in the universe that balanced gravity. Therefore, the universe was non-expanding. He decided to modify his theory of relativity. In his equations, he included another factor into the formula called “the cosmological constant.” After that, the results were completely true to the static cosmic hypothesis at that time.

In 1927, Edwin Hubble announced that the galaxies were gradually moving farther apart as he observed them. This reinforced the concept that the universe saying that the universe was constantly expanding. It was consistent with the Big Bang theory as we as the original formulas in the theory of relativity.

Einstein then had to remove the cosmological constant and announced his biggest mistake in this project. He once said that it was his life’s biggest blunder.

2. Doubting the existence of gravitational waves

In 2016, scientists confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, something that Einstein had predicted from 100 years ago. However, during his research, Einstein himself was doubting this and once claimed that gravitational waves didn’t exist.

In the 1930s, Einstein wrote a scientific paper to deny the existence of the gravitational waves. But it seems like he rethought about it. So 100 years later, his predictions were proved right.

Why did Einstein predict this existence? To simply put it, when we move our hand under the water, it will cause the motion of the surrounding environmental elements, creating waves.

This is similar to the oscillating vocal cords producing sound waves or moving electrons producing electromagnetic waves. So Einstein also thought that moving matter would also disturb the surrounding space, also known as gravitational waves.

Although the logic may seem simple but to prove that gravitational waves exist wasn’t simple, at least at that time.

3. Not valuing the results of his own research

Einstein predicted a very interesting phenomenon called “gravitational lens.” This phenomenon indicates that when light passes through extremely large objects, they will be bent and focused, similar to a lens.

In fact, in the past, Einstein did not appreciate this consequence of the theory of relativity, saying that this phenomenon couldn’t be measured and observed.

But he did not expect that this method would later become a powerful tool for observing and studying the distribution of matter and mass in the universe.

Thanks to the 1919 eclipse phenomenon and gravitational lenses that his relativity was proved to be true. And from there, Einstein has become a famous figure all around the world.

4. His family

Despite being considered the greatest and most intelligent physicist in history, but he wasn’t a good husband. He had two marriages but he had a bad reputation with both of them. He was an unfaithful husband to his first wife Mileva. He was having an affair with his wife’s sister and they were married later. He was said to be unfaithful, unreasonable, and promiscuous.

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