Okay, it was the headline of the day nearly a century ago, when the first experimental results verifying Einstein's Theory of General Relativity came in. But as Joel says, as Walter says, they really knew how to write them back then:
Men of Science More or Less
Agog Over Results of Eclipse
Observations.
EINSTEIN THEORY TRIUMPHS
Stars Not Where They Seemed
or Were Calculated to be,
but Nobody Need Worry
But nobody need worry. I absolutely love that.
2 comments:
I can't remember where I read it now as it was many years ago, but apparently it was a false proof of Einstein's theory that they did back in the 20s. In subsequent eclipses in more modern times with much better instruments astronomers were unable to duplicate Einstein's results. Nobody doubts his conclusions today, but the proof they thought they had in the 20s is uncertain.
I think your sense is right, but your second sentence is wrong. As I understand it, the measurements taken during the eclipse the first time around included a margin of error that was too large for Eddington, et al, to make a firm scientific claim.
Einstein, BTW, was not involved in the experiment.
This page describes some of the details of the experiment, and shows how later measurements improved on the initial results. There is a note that using solar eclipses is not the best way to measure the bending of light, although later experiments have done better. The better way to verify Einstein's predictions these days involves measuring the bending effect due to quasars, using very long baseline interferometry.
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