🚀 go-pugleaf

http://vaghelasv.com/Documents/Stephen.Hawking.A.Brief.History.Of.Time.pdf
Stephen Hawking: "Einstein’s prediction of light deflection could not
be tested immediately in 1915, because the First World War was in
progress, and it was not until 1919 that a British expedition,
observing an eclipse from West Africa, showed that light was indeed
deflected by the sun, just as predicted by the theory. This proof of a
German theory by British scientists was hailed as a great act of
reconciliation between the two countries after the war. It is ionic,
therefore, that later examination of the photographs taken on that
expedition showed the errors were as great as the effect they were
trying to measure. Their measurement had been sheer luck, or a case of
knowing the result they wanted to get, not an uncommon occurrence in
science."

http://www.cieletespace.fr/evenement/relativit-les-preuves-taient-fausses
"Relativité: les preuves étaient fausses.....Le monde entier a cru
pendant plus de cinquante ans à une théorie non vérifiée. Car, nous le
savons aujourd’hui, les premières preuves, issues notamment d’une
célèbre éclipse de 1919, n’en étaient pas. Elles reposaient en partie
sur des manipulations peu avouables visant à obtenir un résultat connu
à l’avance, et sur des mesures entachées d’incertitudes, quand il ne
s’agissait pas de fraudes caractérisées."

http://www.cieletespaceradio.fr/index.php/2008/05/26/390-histoire-des-sciences-les-preuves-de-la-relativite
"Au début du XXème siècle, des scientifiques comme le Britannique
Arthur Eddington avaient tant à coeur de vérifier la théorie de la
relativité qu'ils ont tout mis en oeuvre pour que leurs expériences
soient probantes." (ECOUTEZ!)

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/mar/20-things-you-didn.t-know-about-relativity
"The eclipse experiment finally happened in 1919 (you’re looking at it
on this very page). Eminent British physicist Arthur Eddington
declared general relativity a success, catapulting Einstein into fame
and onto coffee mugs. In retrospect, it seems that Eddington fudged
the results, throwing out photos that showed the “wrong” outcome. No
wonder nobody noticed: At the time of Einstein’s death in 1955,
scientists still had almost no evidence of general relativity in
action."

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16321935.300-ode-to-albert.html
New Scientist: Ode to Albert
"Enter another piece of luck for Einstein. We now know that the light-
bending effect was actually too small for Eddington to have discerned
at that time. Had Eddington not been so receptive to Einstein's
theory, he might not have reached such strong conclusions so soon, and
the world would have had to wait for more accurate eclipse
measurements to confirm general relativity."

The dogs bark but the caravan moves on:

http://www.physorg.com/news162820004.html
May 29th, 2009
"The total eclipse of 29th May 1919 gave scientists the chance to test
the theory for the first time. Eddington travelled to Príncipe to
observe the eclipse and measure the apparent locations of stars near
the Sun. Heavy clouds parted minutes before the eclipse and, with the
Sun almost directly in front of them, the stars appeared to be shifted
from the positions that Eddington had recorded in Oxford 4 months
earlier - direct evidence that our nearest star shapes the space
around it. Celebrations will include a series of public talks, the
installation of an interpretative plaque in the location where
Eddington made his observations and an exhibition illustrating the
science of gravitational lensing from 1919 to the present. 'Without
Eddington's clever experiment and the fortuitous timing of this total
eclipse it might have taken ages before Einstein's theory of gravity,
first proposed in 1915, was proven to be correct,' said Professor
Pedro Ferreira of Oxford University's Department of Physics who is one
of the event's lead speakers."

Pentcho Valev
pvalev@yahoo.com