Monday, July 26, 2010

Eddington's Experiment Was Bogus




To recap the issue, in 1919, Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity was only a few years old, yet academics were eager to put the nightmare of World War I behind them and show the common bond of the old adversaries. Proving the German’s theory correct was greatly desired by scientists who rightly saw the conflict as simply madness. The null hypothesis, set up by standard Newtonian Physics, was that there should be a 0.85 arc-second deflection in light from stars behind the sun, while Einstein predicted a 1.7 arc-second deflection.






Anonymous said...

Great article.

In your last paragraph, I believe you meant to say "teachers aren't ..."

Dave said...

Interesting. I wasn't aware of Eddington's political motivation.

Ivan said...

When Albert Einstein was on the make as young man he wasn't all that much of an honest man either. His paper on Special Relativity was largely based on Poincare's work, but he didn't give the older man any credit. Allegedly Einstein's is the greater work because Poincare couldn't let go of the ether. Peter Gallison in his book Einstein's Clocks Poincare's Maps spends his time cantering out the question of priority because it is obvious in that Poincare's work was prior to and wholly independent of Einstein's, whereas Eintein according to his friends was an avid reader of Poincare's more accessible works. Being a mere historian of science Gallison would not want to fall foul of the holy terrors of the temple of physics. The same goes for Einstein's paper on Brownian motion, the Australian Sutherland had published a similar paper earlier in 1904, but he couldn't get some constant or other correct, so of course all the glory belongs to Einstein. But if the positions were reversed, the Einstein worshippers would be demanding justice, hinting darkly
that the other side was motivated by antisemitism.

The avancular Einstein, father figure to such far out figures as Charles Hapgood and Immanuel Velikovsky is a somewhat different man from his younger self

rajan said...


I thought Koestler's "The Sleepwalkers" was a great exposition of this view of science. A great read (after you get past the Greeks).

Tristram Brelstaff said...

Tubin said...

interesting in the light of the current mess with Duke and soon-to-be-ex-faculty Anil Potti...

Politics, personal glory, money, pressures of tenure requirements - there's so many factors encouraging fraudulent science, it's a miracle anything correct ever gets produced!