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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday July 09 2019, @04:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the things-fall-up? dept.

Supercomputer Shows 'Chameleon Theory' Could Change how We Think About Gravity:

Supercomputer simulations of galaxies have shown that Einstein's theory of General Relativity might not be the only way to explain how gravity works or how galaxies form.

Physicists at Durham University, UK, simulated the cosmos using an alternative model for gravity -- f(R)-gravity, a so called Chameleon Theory.

The resulting images produced by the simulation show that galaxies like our Milky Way could still form in the universe even with different laws of gravity.

The findings show the viability of Chameleon Theory -- so called because it changes behaviour according to the environment -- as an alternative to General Relativity in explaining the formation of structures in the universe.

[...] General Relativity was developed by Albert Einstein in the early 1900s to explain the gravitational effect of large objects in space, for example to explain the orbit of Mercury in the solar system.

[...] Scientists already know from theoretical calculations that Chameleon Theory can reproduce the success of General Relativity in the solar system.

[...] The Durham researchers expect their findings can be tested through observations using the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, based in Australia and South Africa, which is due to begin observations in 2020.

SKA will be the world's largest radio telescope and aims to challenge Einstein's theory of General Relativity, look at how the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang, and help scientists to understand the nature or dark energy.

Journal Reference:
Christian Arnold, Matteo Leo, Baojiu Li. Realistic simulations of galaxy formation in f(R) modified gravity. Nature Astronomy, 2019; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-019-0823-y


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:17AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 09 2019, @08:17AM (#864900)

    Nope, the paper presumes the existence of dark matter.