We constantly say that Einstein’s General and Special theories of relativity have passed many different tests, insenuating their accuracy.
Before Einsten, we tested Isaac Newton’s theories, which also passed with accuracy until Einstein came along.
What’s to say another Einstein/Newton comes along 200-300 years from now to dispute Einstein’s theories?
Is that even possible or are his theories grounded in certainty at this point?
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First thing, we don’t. But that’s the thing about Science is that we never assume what we know is the truth. It’s always evolving and changing.
As technology and measurements progressed, we started noticing discrepancies with Newton’s model.
One of the more famous examples is Mercury’s orbit. Mercury’s orbit is impossible with Newtonian gravity. It’s too “wobbly”. When we discovered that, we still thought Newton was correct, so we started coming up with ideas on how to make it work. The one that worked best was that there was another planet closer to the sun that was pulling Mercury; we called it Vulcan. They could never find it, but because the math said Vulcan had to be there, they assumed it was.
Then Einstein published General Relativity, and that allowed Mercury’s orbit to exist without Vulcan. Mercury is close enough to the sun where the relativistic effects of the Sun’s mass was messing with its orbit. With that explination and the complete lack of evidence of Vulcan, we eventually accepted GR and Vulcan faded into myth.
Something similar to what happened with Newtonian Gravity would need to happen to GR for us to really start looking for a new theory. Right now, with our current technology, we have nothing. GR has passed every test perfectly. The closest thing we have to a discrepency is Dark Matter, but we have other observations that heavily suggests that it’s actually undetected mass rather than a failure of our model of gravity.
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