Yes — like all ideas, it started that way.
All ideas in nature are either true direct descriptions, true indirect ones, or false in a binary logical setting. They are empirically true, rationally true, or irrationally false. However, when someone uncovers one of these latent ideas embedded in the landscape of reality, we have to determine which category it falls into, and that process is not hard. All ideas begin as a speculative irrational idea.
That does not mean wrong. Irrational ideas are either speculative or disproven. New ideas are speculative, which simply means they are awaiting testing, and we do not always know if a new idea can be proven or not. To prove an idea, it must align with reality both empirically and logically. Proven direct ideas are empirical ideas, and the indirect ones are rational.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, published in 1915, was exactly that — a new irrational idea, internally consistent, untested, and unverified. False in a binary logical setting. It challenged Newton’s gravity — which, by then, was an empirical idea, proven through direct observation. And at the time, Einstein was not the only challenger. Physicist Gunnar Nordström had his own theory of gravity. Both Einstein and Nordström believed their ideas described reality — but until tested, both remained irrational.
Then came 1919. During a total solar eclipse, Arthur Eddington’s expedition observed starlight bending around the Sun — exactly as Einstein’s equations predicted. That is the moment Einstein’s idea became empirical. Over time, as it was tested, confirmed, and refined, it became one of our clearest direct descriptions of reality. The math within relativity remains rational because math is an indirect language of structure, but Einstein was not using math merely to describe math. He was using it to describe the material world directly. The theory is an empirical idea because it describes the material world directly.
That is how ideas evolve. They begin as irrational. Some are disproven. Some get ignored. But all true descriptions of reality, both direct and indirect, end up as empirical or rational. So yes — even Einstein’s idea was irrational at one time. That is not a flaw. That is the process of science and philosophy at work.