Posted on 05/27/2019 11:36:11 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Some six months after the Great War of 1914-18 ended, Arthur Eddington travelled at the head of a team on a scientific expedition to the island of Principe off the coast of Equatorial Guinea in West Africa. He headed one of the two teams of astronomers assigned by a Joint Permanent Eclipse Committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society of Britain to observe and record photographically the full solar eclipse scheduled to take place on May 29, 1919.
At the time under Portuguese rule, Principe was selected as one of the two sites – the other was Sobral in the Brazilian Nordeste – from where the total solar eclipse and its full effect could be best observed. The expedition was proposed by Eddington, a rising star among British astronomers, to test Einstein’s general theory of relativity published in the middle of the Great War.
Eddington’s expedition to Principe a century ago tested and confirmed Einstein’s general theory of relativity as the single most outstanding scientific achievement in history by one individual. For more than two centuries Newton’s theory of gravitation, of space and time and motion, had stood as the definitive theory in explaining the mechanics of the universe, and had marked a paradigmatic shift in thinking that characterized the birth of the modern world as Newtonian.
Einstein’s theory when confirmed signified a revolution of even greater magnitude in scientific thinking than what Newton wrought with the publication of his Principia in 1687.
In 1916, Einstein published “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” in the journal Annalen der Physik. Eddington was one of the very few individuals who grasped the implication of Einstein’s theory and was selected by Frank Dyson, the head of the Royal Astronomical Association, to witness and record the full solar eclipse
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Me, I think everything started turning to crap after “Right-Turn-on-Red” legislation started showing up all over the USA in the 1970s.
It was the last of the era of self-control.
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It’s an interesting theory. The law changed. And you can still get arrested for not coming to a complete stop at the Stop sign.
I look on this as one of many examples of convenience in modern life that made people fidgety and more lazy at times.
Air conditioning, microwave ovens, the internet, free telephone calls, mobile phones, Facebook, Free Republic.
Together they made life “better” in terms of convenience, but we lost some reverence for life itself in the process, less dependence on family, and in many other things we are poorer today than in the 1970s.
From the article (which was quite good):
” . . . only 4 percent of the universe is made of known forms of matter and energy of which we humans are an insignificantly tiny part . . .”
From a purely materialistic point of view, that’s exactly correct; but if one views “we humans” as created in the image of God, and the rest of the universe as elaborate (if cold and dead) decoration, that evaluation of significance changes a bit.
“Me, I think everything started turning to crap after “Right-Turn-on-Red” legislation started showing up all over the USA in the 1970s.”
I’ve had it in my mind that it was Beatlemania that screwed everything up.
“the FACT of evolution.”
was referring to the THEORY of Darwinian evolution ...
A theory is an attempt to explain the facts.
It involved timing of Jupiter’s moons coming around her when Jupiter is on this side of the sun...
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sparklite2, I heard Professor Richard Feynman discuss that in one of his lectures. It's fascinating. BTW, many of Feynman's introductory lectures on gravitation, etc. can be found on YouTube. I have converted a few to mp3 files and listened on the way to work. Great stuff!
Your example of Jupiter measurements is telling to me because it's decidedly of a "solar system scale". In other words, a great deal of (relative) accuracy can be arrived at through human built instruments.
However, when you consider that the center of our tiny solar system is calculated at 25,000 light years away and the closest other galaxy is 158,000 light years away. And the closest spiral galaxy, Andromeda is 2.5 million light years away.
When you consider those distances, human verification of deep space astronomical theories is a crap shoot.
To me as a layman, a science like astronomy is of a different realm, one where religious faith in man's abilities and deep state space science overpower the measurable probabilities that give precision to mechanical and electrical engineering.
Am I mistaken?
Modern Times is a brilliant history. Read it many times, and need to get a new copy (I keep giving them away).
I was introduced to Paul Johnson by the Reverend D. Force of a small rural black Baptist congregation. An exceptionally interesting man who made James Earl Jones sound like a soprano.
He knocked a woman up, then left her for his cousin.
Later he left his cousin for his cousin’s DAUGHTER.
He was Woody Allen on steroids long before Woody Allen himself.
But everyone thinks he was an endearing old man with funny hair who was nice to everyone.
The speed of light measurements are done on Earth. The refinement of the figure has been ongoing for the past few hundred years. No, it’s not a crap shoot, and it’s not based on religious anything. What you’re experiencing there is projection.
https://www.physlink.com/education/askexperts/ae22.cfm
The increased mass makes it harder to push the planet faster, and as you speed along closer to light speed, the energy/mass conversion adds so much mass to the planet you can't push it any faster, and the mass gets jaw droppingly large. No wonder you can't push it any faster.
It’s interesting. it sounds intuitively correct, and I guess that’s helped Einstein visualize it.
Thanks for the reference, SunkenCiv.
Like I said, this was for non-science majors.
I’m sure the math nails it right down. ;)
My pleasure.
” ... little bit of atmosphere around the sun ...”
Why not? Hot gasses flying outward. Gravity pulling them back.
But, a gas would refract a star’s light’s frequencies differently (i.e dispersion), so if no separation of colors is observed, guess it can’t be gasses.
Prove it. Macro-evolution (versus intra-species adaptation) is not an observable, replicable fact.
You substitute snark for fact, as per your usual. This is simply an article of faith for you.
“A theory is an attempt to explain the facts.”
indeed. but a theory is NOT a FACT!
Theories are attempts to explain facts.
I don’t see the problem with that.
I’m not going to fight a crevo war with you.
The facts are on the web. Look ‘em up.
Or don’t. Your choice. Good bye.
'The Birth of the Modern' is my current read. It is kind of a prelude to 'Modern Times' and really explains how the world got to be the way it is now.
But the all-time best history of the USA is undoubtedly 'A History of the American People'.
Should be mandatory reading for anyone graduating from any American high school or university.
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