2017-02-15T12:16:00-08:00
If it were not for this man, the world would not have known a man named Albert Einstein.
It took the world 14 years to know a man named Albert Einstein. That was in 1919 when the British physicist Arthur Eddington was able to prove the validity of Einstein’s theory, which undermined Newton’s theory and radically changed our view of the universe.
Arthur Eddington, the English scientist who met with great opposition from members of the British Royal Society of Sciences for merely daring to question Newton’s theory. Newton was the English genius and the theory that the English were proud of was that it emerged from a British mentality and a British university. Newton’s theory in that period was seen in many aspects. It was narrowly viewed by English scientists as a British legacy, especially since the political conflict in that period between the Germans and the English was raging, and for a German man to undermine Newton’s theory and present another theory, was considered a political victory before it was a scientific victory.
Newton’s theory of gravity applied to all planets except Mercury. This planet did not apply to Newton’s law of gravity, which states that force is inversely proportional to the square of distance. The deviation in Mercury’s path indicates that the gravitational force acting on it deviates slightly when it depends inversely on the square of the distance. Scientists explained this deviation to the influences of other planets on Mercury, and other scientists provided explanations, such as the sun’s shape deviating slightly from its perfectly spherical shape. There are those who suggested the existence of an unknown planet between the sun and Mercury, but observatories were unable to detect such a planet. Mercury remained a mystery that needed explanation.
Until 1916, the English scientist Arthur Eddington sent a letter to Einstein asking about an explanation for this anomaly in the planet Mercury based on his theory of general relativity. Indeed, Einstein was able to explain this anomaly completely naturally and without assumptions, relying on the theory of general relativity. With the solution to Arthur Eddington, when the English scientist read Einstein’s answer, he was very determined to persuade the British Scientific Association to fund his scientific journey to prove the validity of Einstein’s theory.
In 1919, the scientist Arthur Eddington was able to persuade the British Royal Society to obtain funding for the scientific mission to South Africa to prove the validity of Einstein’s theory, to monitor the total eclipse of the sun, and to photograph the positions of the stars before and after the eclipse.
Will the positions of the stars change before and after the eclipse?
This was the question that would confirm the validity of Einstein’s theory
If the positions of the stars change, then Einstein’s theory is correct
But
If the positions of the stars do not change, then Einstein’s theory is wrong
After the end of Eddington’s scientific mission, he returned to Britain carrying pictures of the locations of the stars. Scientists from all over the world were waiting for Eddington’s result, and many of them spent the night staying up, except for Einstein, who went to bed.
In front of members of the British Scientific Society, recorded images of the positions of the stars showed differences in their locations.
After the announcement of this result by the scientist Edington, a large gathering of media figures, newspaper reporters, and photographers were in front of the residence of the German Einstein, who became the undisputed star of the world and science, the physicist who brought about a new revolution in science and changed our concepts about the universe.
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