Updates
News & discoveries
Einstein is an enduring subject — but research, anniversaries and auctions occasionally bring real news. This is a short, curated feed of the milestones that matter, each linked to its source.
Image: Markus Pössel / Pbroks13 (Wikimedia Commons). CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
A falling quantum wave obeys Einstein’s ‘happiest thought’
On 2 September 2026 a team reported in Science Advances the first measurement of the quantum phase that a freely falling object acquires: one half of an atomic wave packet was allowed to fall while the other was held in place, and the phase between them matches the value expected from the equivalence principle to about 2.5 percent.
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Image: Johnstone (Wikipedia). CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
Earth twists spacetime — now measured to 0.2 percent
On 8 July 2026 a team reported in Nature the most precise measurement yet of frame dragging around the Earth: laser ranging to the satellites LARES-2 and LAGEOS matches Einstein’s prediction to about 0.2 percent.
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Image: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
A ‘ringing’ black hole proves Einstein and Hawking right
In January 2025 the clearest black-hole merger ever recorded let physicists ‘hear’ the new black hole ring down — confirming predictions by Einstein and Hawking.
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Image: Paul Ehrenfest. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
A Nobel Prize settles Einstein’s greatest doubt
The 2022 Physics Nobel honoured experiments on quantum entanglement — the “spooky action” Einstein rejected, now shown to be real.
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Image: Albert Einstein (vectorised by Scewing). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
Einstein’s relativity notes fetch a record €11.6 million
The Einstein–Besso manuscript, showing the working-out of general relativity, became the most valuable scientific document ever auctioned.
Read moreImage: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration. CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
A black hole is photographed — and Einstein passes again
The first image of a black hole matched general relativity precisely, a century after Einstein’s theory implied such objects could exist.
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Image: Orren Jack Turner. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
Einstein’s “God letter” sells for $2.9 million
A blunt 1954 letter on God and religion — written a year before his death — set an auction record for an Einstein letter.
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Image: Nobel Foundation (photo possibly Herman Mishkin). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
Einstein’s “theory of happiness” sells for $1.56 million
A few words he scribbled in 1922 in place of a tip — advice on a calm, modest life — fetched a fortune in Jerusalem.
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Image: MOBle (Wikipedia). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons (Source)
A century-old prediction confirmed: gravitational waves
LIGO directly detected ripples in spacetime from two colliding black holes — exactly as Einstein predicted in 1916.
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