Kennefick, Daniel J. (Author)
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.
...MoreReview 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).
Essay Review Klaus Hentschel (2020) Weighing Light and Pondering Historiographies. Annals of Science: The History of Science and Technology (pp. 383-387).
Book
Nuno Crato;
Luís Tirapicos;
(2019)
O Eclipse de Einstein: Entre Lisboa, Londres, Sobral e o Príncipe
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Book
Nuno Crato;
Luís Tirapicos;
(2019)
O Eclipse de Einstein – Entre Lisboa, Londres, Sobral e o Príncipe/Einstein's Eclipse / From Lisbon and London to Sobral and the Island of Príncipe
(/isis/citation/CBB964326453/)
Article
Gerard Gilmore FRS;
Gudrun Tausch-Pebody;
(2020)
The 1919 Eclipse Results That Verified General Relativity and Their Later Detractors: A Story Re-Told
(/isis/citation/CBB772698936/)
Book
S. James Gates Jr;
Cathie Pelletier;
(2019)
Proving Einstein Right: The Daring Expeditions that Changed How We Look at the Universe
(/isis/citation/CBB338364142/)
Article
Almassi, Ben;
(2009)
Trust in Expert Testimony: Eddington's 1919 Eclipse Expedition and the British Response to General Relativity
(/isis/citation/CBB000933690/)
Article
Stanley, Matthew;
(2003)
“An Expedition to Heal the Wounds of War”: The 1919 Eclipse and Eddington as Quaker Adventurer
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Article
Marcelo C. de Lima;
Luís C. B. Crispino;
(2016)
Amazonia Introduced to General Relativity: The May 29, 1919, Solar Eclipse from a North-Brazilian Point of View
(/isis/citation/CBB102957565/)
Article
James Lequeux;
(2023)
The total solar eclipse of 9 May 1929: The French expeditions to Poulo Condore Island in French Indochina
(/isis/citation/CBB233593596/)
Article
Pesic, Peter;
(2013)
Helmholtz, Riemann, and the Sirens: Sound, Color, and the “Problem of Space”
(/isis/citation/CBB001320409/)
Book
Ron Cowen;
(2019)
Gravity’s Century: From Einstein’s Eclipse to Images of Black Holes
(/isis/citation/CBB699668949/)
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
Durham, Ian T.;
(2003)
Eddington and Uncertainty
(/isis/citation/CBB000641719/)
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/)
Article
Pound, Robert V.;
(2000)
Weighing Photons, I
(/isis/citation/CBB000110128/)
Article
Mota, Elsa;
Crawford, Paulo;
Simões, Ana;
(2009)
Einstein in Portugal: Eddington's Expedition to Principe and the Reactions of Portuguese Astronomers (1917--25)
(/isis/citation/CBB000932112/)
Book
Marianne Klemun;
Ulrike Spring;
(2016)
Expeditions as Experiments: Practising Observation and Documentation
(/isis/citation/CBB547865448/)
Book
Matthew Stanley;
(2019)
Einstein's War: How Relativity Conquered Nationalism and Shook the World
(/isis/citation/CBB538235042/)
Book
Ratcliff, Jessica;
(2008)
The Transit of Venus Enterprise in Victorian Britain
(/isis/citation/CBB000773748/)
Book
Collins, Harry;
(2013)
Gravity's Ghost and Big Dog: Scientific Discovery and Social Analysis in the Twenty-First Century
(/isis/citation/CBB001213158/)
Article
Ruiz Castell, Pedro;
(2009)
Els Eclipsis totals de Sol: un punt d'inflexió en el desenvolupament de l'astronomia i l'astrofísica a l'Espanya de principis del segle XX
(/isis/citation/CBB001021902/)
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