The 1919 eclipse results that verified general relativity and their later detractors: a story re-told
Publication Date
2022Journal Title
NOTES AND RECORDS-THE ROYAL SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE
ISSN
0035-9149
Publisher
The Royal Society
Volume
76
Issue
1
Pages
155-180
Language
en
Type
Article
This Version
AO
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Gilmore, G., & Tausch-Pebody, G. (2022). The 1919 eclipse results that verified general relativity and their later detractors: a story re-told. NOTES AND RECORDS-THE ROYAL SOCIETY JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE, 76 (1), 155-180. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2020.0040
Abstract
<jats:p>Einstein became world famous on 7 November 1919, following press publication of a meeting held in London on 6 November 1919 where the results were announced of two British expeditions led by Eddington, Dyson and Davidson to measure how much background starlight is bent as it passes the Sun. Three data sets were obtained: two showed the measured deflection matched the theoretical prediction of Einstein's 1915 Theory of General Relativity, and became the official result; the third was discarded as defective.</jats:p>
<jats:p>At the time, the experimental result was accepted by the expert astronomical community. However, in 1980 a study by philosophers of science Earman and Glymour claimed that the data selection in the 1919 analysis was flawed and that the discarded data set was fully valid and was not consistent with the Einstein prediction, and that, therefore, the overall result did not verify General Relativity. This claim, and the resulting accusation of Eddington's bias, was repeated with exaggeration in later literature and has become ubiquitous.</jats:p>
<jats:p>The 1919 and 1980 analyses of the same data provide two discordant conclusions. We reanalyse the 1919 data, and identify the error that undermines the conclusions of Earman and Glymour.</jats:p>
Keywords
RESEARCH ARTICLES, twentieth century science, Sir Arthur Eddington, General Relativity, bias, research methodology, nullius in verba
Sponsorship
European Commission Horizon 2020 (H2020) Research Infrastructures (RI) (730890)
Identifiers
rsnr20200040
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1098/rsnr.2020.0040
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/333552
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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