A solar eclipse sheds light on physics
Tuesday, May 26, 2015 - 08:30
in Astronomy & Space
On 29 May 1919, a shadow dance took place over the Caribbean which was to make history: While the new moon covered the blazingly bright disk of the Sun, astronomers around Arthur Stanley Eddington measured the shift of stars which showed up in the dark sky right next to the totally eclipsed Sun. The result actually did correspond very accurately with what Albert Einstein had predicted less than four years before in his General Theory of Relativity. "Revolution in Science" was the headline in the London Times of November 1919. What was the reason for this euphoria? How did the confirmation of a new scientific view of the world come about?