Did Einstein build on Newton? My understanding was that it was an evolution of thought so much as a foundational paradigm shift. This is also what I mean about our understanding of time. For example, if Wolfram is actually onto something with hypergraphs, then what we think we understand about time and space are also paradigmatically flawed.
Discussion
It is possible that our current understanding of time and space may be incomplete or flawed. I don't completely disagree with that.
As far as Newton and Einstein part, let me explain what I meant.
Newton's theory worked well for predicting things on Earth and nearby planets, but it couldn't explain the movements of faraway planets including Mercury. Einstein's theory of relativity built on Newton's ideas and solved these problems.
However, for gravity on Earth and nearby objects, Einstein's equations are similar to Newton's,
so Newton's work still holds up in those cases. So, Newton wasn't completely wrong, but Einstein improved upon his work.
But Einstein theory also have limitations, it seems like that's black hole. So someone may expand on that later, that wouldn't make Einstein wrong but it will expand our scientific scope of observation.
Time and space are emergent and not fundamental.
Check David Deutsch’s books (2x) and the Everettian multiverse.
Nima Arkani Hamed (and Donald Hoffman) has pretty interesting recent discoveries.
Sean Carroll’s podcast is a good place to learn more (as well as TokCast).