Question: what if Einstein was wrong?

Kerrianne Harrington answered on 6 Nov 2017:

We’d be in a very interesting place! It wouldn’t be as disastrous as you think, in many ways it would be kind of exciting. More to discover! More science to do!

Depending on what we are talking about, Einstein was wrong about somethings. One of his most famous quotes is “God does not play dice.” This was him talking about quantum mechanics, which must have been really mind blowing at the time (and still is)! Before quantum mechanics, scientists would have had a deterministic view of the universe. This basically meant that with loads of equations, and enough knowledge about the system, you could know exactly how everything was going to happen. This seems fair enough. If you know the equations of motion, and you throw a ball, with enough knowledge, you could predict the trajectory of that ball.

But quantum mechanics says there’s a world of tiny particles behind everything that’s governed by probability. Even with all the knowledge and equations, you can’t really say with complete certainty what is going to happen, just a probability. This electron will probably be somewhere… around here. Even if I know where it started, and the equations that guide it. Einstein rejected the idea, but all physicists today accept quantum mechanics.

So even the best of the best can sometimes be wrong! But to be fair to Einstein, quantum mechanics is kind of wacky.