The solar eclipse that confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity

In 1905, Albert Einstein was an unknown physicist working discreetly in an office at the Bern Patent Office in Switzerland. However, that arduous work left him many free hours to freely give his theories and ideas about the universe. There was a drawer under his desk where he kept his calculations and notes, a drawer which, because of its strange humor, he called “his department of theoretical physics”. But that year of 1905 would not be any such year, in fact today it is called “”.annus mirabilis” And Einstein would take out his entire physical arsenal from that wonderful drawer to publish Four Articles That Will Change the History of Science,

The first of these is described in the article photoelectric effect And for this work alone, Albert Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics. What was the second study dedicated to? Brownian movementthe third introduced theory of special relativity And, finally, in the fourth article he developed mass-energy equivalence Which today we all know in short as E=mc².

Still, those weren’t all the writings up Einstein’s sleeve… yet The fifth original article was missingThere is a theory that he would publish a decade later (1915) and called: general relativity theory,

The physics of celestial bodies held together by gravity, which Newton had propounded, was about to take an unexpected turn… The universal fabric created by space-time was now twisted into the presence of mass and energy. The equations fit exactly but this theory needs a boost to confirm its accuracy. Albert Einstein was a great theoretical thinker, his equations explained physical reality in a revolutionary way, but without An experiment that will put them into practice and confirm them They will just be ideas on paper…

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Fortunately, the cosmic experiment required by general relativity is not very unusual and, as we are seeing these days, it usually happens from time to time… Albert Einstein needed an eclipse To verify that the predictions of their theory occurred in the real world.

In 1915, the most interesting thing about eclipses was Opportunity to investigate the deflection of light by the Sun’s gravity, thus proving Einstein right. For Newton, light had no mass, but the new theory stated that light not only had mass, but was also affected by the gravity of celestial bodies such as the Sun.

To verify this deviation of light, a group of British astronomers led by Arthur Eddington, Frank Watson Dyson and Andrew Crommelin went to two very specific locations where they could observe many stars during a total solar eclipse, which Will happen exactly on the 29th. May 1919. Eddington traveled to the island of Principe (Africa) and Crommelin traveled to the Brazilian city of Sobral. Everyone knew well the position of certain stars in the night sky, but now they can measure the position of the same stars during an eclipse and it will be possible Determine if the light rays were actually bent While passing close to the Sun’s gravitational field.

Eddington and Crommelin obtained images of the eclipse using the technology of the time: photographic plates made of glass (exactly the same images I have used in this text) and were able to confirm, for the first time, that the light was indeed affected. Was the Sun’s gravity. …theory of general relativity he was right in his prediction And, since then, astronomers and astrophysicists have continued to use eclipses to measure the deviations proposed by Einstein.

Today, this simple experiment is one of the most famous and repeated experiments around the world. In fact, an amateur astronomer recently reconfirmed Einstein’s ideas from his backyard during the 2017 eclipse.

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