Brace yourselves for gravitational waves

[Aractus]

Says you! I'd only agree with this partially because of my species notoriously flawed perceptions, and you cant get to Einstein's level or Hawkings level without that skepticism. I think both are amazing. 

But I fail to see how he didn't build on Newton, he certainly thought there was more to it than Newton, but to get further he certainly had to learn what Newton did. QM doesn't negate Newton, it is just that you cant use classical physics at the QM scale. Just like we still have bicycles and still make them, but you cant apply a bicycle tire to a Lamborghini. Science always builds upon the past. Einstein simply made a correction in our perceptions. No Newton no Einstein to update Newton.

No, says everyone.

It isn't a continuation of classical physics. Quantum mechanics is a continuation of classical physics (although considered to be beyond classical physics in its own right), and to some degree special relativity could also be described as a continuation of classical physics also. General relativity, however, is not. It is a brand new theory. Einstein realised he couldn't continue developing his theory along the same path as Newtonian mechanics and special relativity. It can't be simplified into anything that came before it, it can't be reconciled with quantum mechanics either. And the reason is because Einstein removed gravity as a force in GR. In classical mechanics, gravity is a force. But in general relativity it is a result of the distortion of space-time.

Without this description of gravity, quasars and black holes would not be possible, and neither would a "big bang". And there is little to no evidence that anyone else in the past 100 years would have or could have come up with the theory, or one like it.

What we now know, and there's almost no uncertainty left about this, is that General Relativity is correct. Okay sure, you can't prove a scientific law, let alone a scientific theory, but consider this. All experimental evidence has so far proven the predictions of GR right. And these were made way back when Einstein did not have the capacity to make calculations on measurements that would differ significantly from Newtonian mechanics. There's a huge difference between NM and GR. NM simply points out interesting features of the universe, and provides a way to calculate those features. GR however doesn't point out the interesting features, but asks the question of "how does the universe fundamentally behave and function" and from there it poses solutions to the question "what features might I expect". One is based on replicating real-world data, the other was designed to go beyond it - and it has. It's gone way beyond the data available to Einstein in the early 20th century.