Total Eclipse Images Prove that Einstein was Right!

The definitive 1952 image results replicating Sir Arthur Eddington’s famous first experimental test of Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity of 1919 are stored at the Yerkes Observatory Plate Archive. Dr. Osborn discusses these amazing images.

The back story is that in 1916, Albert Einstein, who was at the time an obscure newcomer in theoretical physics had published his final form of General Relativity. One prediction of his theories of relativity was that light traveling through space would curve by an object’s gravitational field — but not by much. A ray of light from a star passing near the edge of the sun, for example, would bend a tiny 1.75 arc seconds. In 1917 the Astronomer Royal of Britain, Sir Frank Watson Dyson, proposed the perfect experiment to resolve the issue. A total solar eclipse on May 29, 1919, would occur just as the sun was crossing the bright Hyades star cluster. Dyson realized that the light from the stars would have to pass through the sun’s gravitational field on its way to Earth, yet would be visible due to the darkness of the eclipse. This would allow accurate measurements of the stars’ gravity-shifted positions in the sky. While the results established in 1919 were good enough to make Einstein’s General Relativity Theory valid, the tiny measurements required and their accuracy still left some questions. The plates at Yerkes Observatory taken in 1952 laid those concerns to rest...

[kaibroeking]

It would have been wonderful to have a shot of the two plates superimposed in the video!

[lifetheuniverse]

It is great that you still have the original data.. but it would have been so easy to share the data with the wonder of a simple video so frustrating...

[cesarvillalobos]

is it the first video? is there another? I do not see the superposition of transparence over photo

[ADANTHEGIANT]

Wasn’t it 1921 in Australia...not 1952 in Africa