He rewrote the equations of general relativity to make them compatible with quantum mechanics.
It is notoriously hard to modify the equations of general relativity without damaging the theory beyond repair.
Its fine-scale measurements will even permit scientists to conduct some strenuous tests of General Relativity - Einstein's theory of gravity.
The effect is a direct consequence of Einstein's theory of general relativity which tells us that space is warped by the presence of mass.
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For now it seems, general relativity is not in any real danger.
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One is Einstein's general relativity, which deals with space, time and gravity.
Their model takes into account both general relativity and all known gravitational effects of the sun, the moon, the planets and large asteroids.
At the time Einstein proposed his Theory of General Relativity, it had not been observationally established that the universe was in a state of expansion.
But the possibility also remains that General Relativity Einstein's sacred child is wrong.
Even the slightest sliver of a difference would mean that general relativity is built on an approximation and that a deeper, more precise theory must exist.
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In that case, though, physicists will have gained a better understanding of how the predictions of general relativity mesh with Newtonian gravity in the case of galaxies.
Together, they developed Dr Ashtekar's idea to show that it implies that space and time are not smooth, as general relativity requires, but come in tiny, distinct chunks.
Having two candidates for a theory of everything is almost as upsetting to physicists as their inability to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity in the first place.
In the next decade, Genzel hopes the planned next generation of 30 meter-class telescopes will enable black hole astronomers to test general relativity around the event horizon itself.
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Instead of using Newton's theory of gravity to examine why fast-moving stars remain within their galaxies, the pair applied general relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, to the problem.
Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1916, offering a description of gravity, space and time that transformed how scientists understand the physical laws governing the known universe.
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The gravitational field between the two black holes was so strong that it had never been possible to test Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in such an extreme situation.
"From Einstein's theory of gravity, that is his general relativity theory, we believe mass curves space and this can cause light to follow a curved path, " he told BBC News Online.
This might not sound like much, until we understand that it has been theorised that the way in which they do so is similar to how spacetime manipulates light in general relativity.
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An anomaly in the orbit of Mercury provided one of the first clues that the laws of gravity as described by Newton were incomplete, which, in turn, led Einstein to general relativity.
In particle physics, sound-bite explanations are much harder: wave-particle duality, quantum mechanics, general relativity and string theory make good mathematical sense, or so I am told, but they generally defy translation into English.
But the same could have been said of the theory of general relativity, and yet satellite navigation, on which we all now depend, would be riddled with inaccuracies without corrections derived from it.
Roger Penrose, for example, has long been on record as arguing that it is quantum mechanics, not general relativity, that needs to be modified in order to successfully develop a grand unified theory.
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In any case, general relativity directly contradicts quantum mechanics, the other great physical theory of the 20th century, so more and more precise tests need to be carried out to find out what cracks might exist in either theory.
"This means that by watching what happens to the positions of the quasars on the sky as the gravitational field of Jupiter moves past their line-of-sight, the scientists can test other aspects of the general relativity theory, " says Professor Shanks.
To their surprise, when he and Mr Tieu did the calculation with general relativity, they found that they were able to reproduce the observed speeds at which individual stars are orbiting the centre of a galaxy, without requiring the galaxy to contain dark matter.
"Einstein's theory of general relativity tells us that mass bends space and time, so when light comes toward us through the Universe, if it passes some dark matter, its light gets bent and the image we see gets bent and distorted, " Dr Heymans told the meeting.
After Hubble published his findings in 1929, he, Einstein, British astronomer Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, and Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter, all gathered at a special meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society and pondered how they could account for such developments based on static universe models that Einstein and de Sitter had derived with General Relativity.
Einstein predicted the distortion of light in this way in 1915, as part of his general theory of relativity.
Einstein's general theory of relativity states that objects with mass cause a curvature in space-time, which we perceive as gravity.
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