Bottom Science
ISAAC NEWTON is considered as the greatest scientist of all time. We all know about his Law of Gravitation, as most of our childhood was spent reading and learning it. The theory of universal gravity has been dis-proven in the study of black holes. Scientists conducted research on a star called ‘S0-2’ which is at its closest to black hole Sagittarius A*, that lies at the center of the Milky Way 26,000 light-years away from the Earth. The study put the law of universal gravitation to test and it did not hold true. Not in the case of black holes at least.
However, the researchers still prefer to go with Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity even after their most comprehensive test near the monstrous black hole at the center of our galaxy.
Talking about the new findings, Andrea Ghez from University of California said, “Einstein is right, at least for now. We can absolutely rule out Newton’s law of gravity. Our observations are consistent with Einstein’s theory of general relativity”.
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“However, his theory is definitely showing vulnerability,” Ghez said, adding that “It cannot fully explain gravity inside a black hole, and at some point, we will need to move beyond Einstein’s theory to a more comprehensive theory of gravity that explains what a black hole is” he added.
According to Einstein’s theory of general relativity, gravity results from how mass warps space and time. The greater an object’s mass, the stronger it’s gravitational pull. On the other hand, Newton’s law of universal gravitation states that every particle attracts every other particle in the universe with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between their centers.
Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton’s discoveries are the main pillars of modern physics but, the black hole has put both theories by the legendary physicists to test.
Black holes are extraordinarily dense and have gravitational fields so strong that light and matter cannot escape. This is why Einstein’s theory cannot fully explain the way gravity works in and around the black hole. Scientists will soon have to find a much more comprehensive theory that can be applied to the study of black holes.
