29 May 1919
Eclipse Test
Measures starlight deflection during a solar eclipse, supporting general relativity.
Historical place archive
Browse historical events and people recorded at Principe in Great Britain. The records below are rendered directly from the World History Database into this page's initial HTML.
Measures starlight deflection during a solar eclipse, supporting general relativity.
Eddington leads eclipse observations that support Einsteins prediction of starlight deflection
Davidson assists Eddington during the Principe eclipse expedition testing relativistic light bending
According to the theory of general relativity, stars with light rays that passed near the Sun would appear to have been slightly shifted because their light had been curved by its gravitational field.
During the eclipse, he took pictures of the stars in the region around the Sun.
Eddington travelled to the island of Principe near Africa to watch the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919.
This effect is noticeable only during eclipses, since otherwise the Suns brightness obscures the affected stars.
Provenance
These entries are generated from stored World History Database records whose country and place fields match Great Britain and Principe. Names, dates, event labels and descriptions are reviewed and normalised as the database develops. Historical place names may not match modern administrative boundaries.
This database is a research index. For formal scholarly citation, verify individual claims against appropriate primary, archival, academic or specialist sources.