Book ID: CBB995908077

No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity (2019)

unapi

Kennefick, Daniel J. (Author)


Princeton University Press


Publication Date: 2019
Physical Details: 416
Language: English

On their 100th anniversary, the story of the extraordinary scientific expeditions that ushered in the era of relativityIn 1919, British scientists led extraordinary expeditions to Brazil and Africa to test Albert Einstein’s revolutionary new theory of general relativity in what became the century’s most celebrated scientific experiment. The result ushered in a new era and made Einstein a global celebrity by confirming his dramatic prediction that the path of light rays would be bent by gravity. Today, Einstein’s theory is scientific fact. Yet the effort to “weigh light” by measuring the gravitational deflection of starlight during the May 29, 1919, solar eclipse has become clouded by myth and skepticism. Could Arthur Eddington and Frank Dyson have gotten the results they claimed? Did the pacifist Eddington falsify evidence to foster peace after a horrific war by validating the theory of a German antiwar campaigner? In No Shadow of a Doubt, Daniel Kennefick provides definitive answers by offering the most comprehensive and authoritative account of how expedition scientists overcame war, bad weather, and equipment problems to make the experiment a triumphant success.The reader follows Eddington on his voyage to Africa through his letters home, and delves with Dyson into how the complex experiment was accomplished, through his notes. Other characters include Howard Grubb, the brilliant Irishman who made the instruments; William Campbell, the American astronomer who confirmed the result; and Erwin Findlay-Freundlich, the German whose attempts to perform the test in Crimea were foiled by clouds and his arrest.By chronicling the expeditions and their enormous impact in greater detail than ever before, No Shadow of a Doubt reveals a story that is even richer and more exciting than previously known.

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Reviewed By

Review Tiffany Nichols (2020) Review of "No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einstein's Theory of Relativity". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 417-418). unapi

Essay Review Klaus Hentschel (2020) Weighing Light and Pondering Historiographies. Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology (pp. 383-387). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB995908077/

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Authors & Contributors
Stanley, Matthew
Tirapicos, Luís
Crato, Nuno
Gates, S. James, Jr.
Gilmore, Gerard
Tausch-Pebody, Gudrun
Concepts
Relativity, general
Physics
Eclipses; transits; occultations; conjunctions
Scientific expeditions
Relativity
Astronomy
Time Periods
20th century, early
21st century
20th century
19th century
20th century, late
Places
Great Britain
Brazil
Germany
São Tomé and Príncipe
Lisbon (Portugal)
London (England)
Institutions
Harvard University
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