IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB000932112

Einstein in Portugal: Eddington's Expedition to Principe and the Reactions of Portuguese Astronomers (1917--25) (2009)

Mota, Elsa (Author)
Crawford, Paulo (Author)
Simões, Ana I. (Author)

British Journal for the History of Science
Volume: 42
Pages: 245--273

Outside Links

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Academia.edu

Physics Scientific expeditions Scientific communities; interprofessional relations Astronomy Relativity 20th century, early Portugal Eddington, Arthur Stanley

Among various case studies addressing the reception of relativity, very few deal with Portugal at either the international or the national level. The national literature on the topic has mainly concentrated on the reactions to relativity of the Portuguese mathematical community. The absence of Portuguese astronomers alongside Eddington during the 1919 expedition to Principe, then a Portuguese island, has been implicitly equated with the astronomical community's lack of interest in the event. In reception studies dealing with general relativity, analysis has tended to focus on the physics and mathematics communities, less on the astronomers. Given that relativity was born at the interface of physics, mathematics and astronomy, reactions of members of these scientific communities depended on differences in shared traditions, values, problems and expectations, as well as on individual practitioners' idiosyncrasies. This paper addresses the contributions of the overlooked Portuguese astronomical community, evaluates the actions and reactions of its members to the expedition and assesses their role in the process of appropriation of relativity.

...More

Citation URI

http://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000932112/

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Almassi, Ben; (2009)
Trust in Expert Testimony: Eddington's 1919 Eclipse Expedition and the British Response to General Relativity (/isis/citation/CBB000933690/)

Article Sponsel, Alistair; (2002)
Constructing a “Revolution in Science”: The Campaign to Promote a Favourable Reception for the 1919 Solar Eclipse Experiments (/isis/citation/CBB000300440/)

Book Matthew Stanley; (2019)
Einstein's War: How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World (/isis/citation/CBB538235042/)

Article Batten, Alan H.; (2003)
What Eddington Did Not Say (/isis/citation/CBB000410782/)

Article Gangui, Alejandro; Ortiz, Eduardo L.; (2008)
Einstein's Unpublished Opening Lecture for His Course on Relativity Theory in Argentina, 1925 (/isis/citation/CBB000831755/)

Article Klein, Martin J.; (2010)
Paul Ehrenfest, Niels Bohr, and Albert Einstein: Colleagues and Friends (/isis/citation/CBB001036147/)

Article Abiko, Seiya; (2007)
Interchange between Physics and Philosophy in the Late-Meiji and Taisho Era Japan (/isis/citation/CBB000930006/)

Book Govert Schilling; (2017)
Ripples in Spacetime: Einstein, Gravitational Waves, and the Future of Astronomy (/isis/citation/CBB583090654/)

Article Emanuele Tamborrino; (2013)
Aleksander Friedmann e la «rivoluzione copernicana» in cosmologia: L’impatto sulla cosmologia relativistica einsteiniana (/isis/citation/CBB774916209/)

Article Hentschel, Klaus; (2003)
Letter to the Editor (/isis/citation/CBB000410790/)

Book Crelinsten, Jeffrey; (2006)
Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity (/isis/citation/CBB000610302/)

Thesis Almassi, Benjamin S.P.; (2009)
Expert Testimony and the Social Transmission of Scientific Knowledge (/isis/citation/CBB001560637/)

Book Daniel Kennefick; (2019)
No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity (/isis/citation/CBB995908077/)

Article Wesemael, Francois; (2010)
“Unaffected by Fortune, Good or Bad”: Context and Reception of Chandrasekhar's Mass-Radius Relationship for White Dwarfs, 1935--1965 (/isis/citation/CBB000954802/)

Article Stanley, Matthew; (2003)
“An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War”: The 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer (/isis/citation/CBB000340621/)

Article Smadja, Ivahn; (2010)
Tuning up Mind's Pattern to Nature's Own Idea: Eddington's Early Twenties Case for Variational Derivatives (/isis/citation/CBB000933694/)

Article Adam Tamas Tuboly; (2020)
Knowledge Missemination: L. Susan Stebbing, C.E.M. Joad, and Philipp Frank on the Philosophy of the Physicists (/isis/citation/CBB985127853/)

Thesis Stanley, Matthew George; (2004)
Practical Mystic: Religion and Science in the Life and Work of A. S. Eddington (/isis/citation/CBB001562117/)

Article Stanley, Matthew; (2007)
So Simple a Thing as a Star: The Eddington--Jeans Debate over Astrophysical Phenomenology (/isis/citation/CBB000771301/)

Book Fiolhais, C.; (2005)
Einstein entre nós: a recepção de Einstein em Portugal de 1905 a 1955 (/isis/citation/CBB001032931/)