LIGO black hole echoes hint at general-relativity breakdown
Personally, I would not be surprised if we discover that our understanding of general relativity is wrong for extreme values (i.e. very high mass densities). The whole problem of dark energy and dark matter -which has failed to show up in any conceivable form so far- also gives reason to doubt the validity of our current theory of gravitation.<p>I think we&#x27;re in a similar situation like at the end of the 19th century, were many physicists thought that everything that could be discovered already was, apart from some &quot;edge phenomena&quot; that would need to be resolved somehow using the current theories. In the end, these edge cases turned out to be the first hints of some completely new theories that dramatically improved our understanding of nature. I think that gravity and quantum mechanics are due for a similar change, and in the coming decades we might just get the data that we need to make this change happpen.<p>I also have difficulties &quot;buying&quot; the current theory of black hole physics, especially the concepts of an event horizon and the infinite mass density, as well as the problems which arise from them (e.g. black hole energy evaporation through virtual particle generation at the horizon). And as previous theories of gravitation have broken down at points of extreme value (high energy, high speed), I think black holes are a hot candidate for breaking general relativity.