Do the 1919 Eclipse Photographs prove General Relativity? An important claim that needs a scientific and historical response…
aulis.com/albert_einstein.htm
There can be no clearer definition of scientific fraud than what went on in the Tropics on May 29, 1919. What is particularly clear is that Eddington fudged the solar eclipse data to make the results conform to Einstein’s" work on general relativity. Poor (1930), Brown (1967), Clark (1984) and McCausland (2001) all address the issues surrounding this eclipse.
What makes the expeditions to Sobral and Principe so suspect is Eddington’s zealous support of Einstein, as can be seen in his statement,
*“By standing foremost in testing, and ultimately verifying the ‘enemy’ theory, our national observatory kept alive the finest traditions of science…” *(Clark, 1984).
In this instance, apparently Eddington was not familiar with the basic tenets of science. His job was to objectively collect data-not parrot Einstein’s theories, a nostrum modern physicists might well keep in mind.]
Further evidence for the fraud can be deduced from Eddington’s own statements and the introduction to them provided by Clark :
*“May 29 began with heavy rain, which stopped only about noon. Not until 1.30 pm when the eclipse had already begun did the party get its first glimpse of the sun:
'We had to carry out our programme of photographs on faith…”’ . *
Eddington reveals his true prejudice: he was willing to do anything to see that Einstein was proved right. But Eddington was not to be deterred:
*“It looked as though the effort, so far as the Principe expedition was concerned, might have been abortive”;
“We developed the photographs, two each night for six nights after the eclipse… The cloudy weather upset my plans and I had to treat the measures in a different way from what I intended; consequently I have not been able to make any preliminary announcement of the result” *
Actually, Eddington’s words speak volumes about the result. As soon as he found a shred of evidence that was consistent with “Einstein’s” general relativity theory, he immediately proclaimed it as proof of the theory. Is this science?
Where were the astronomers when Eddington presented his findings? Did anyone besides Eddington actually look at the photographic plates? Poor did, and he completely repudiated the findings of Eddington. This should have given pause to any ethical scientist.
Here are some quotes from Poor’s summary:
*“The mathematical formula, by which Einstein calculated his deflection of 1.75 arc-seconds for light rays passing the edge of the sun, is a well known and simple formula of physical optics”;
“Not a single one of the fundamental concepts of varying time, or warped or twisted space, of simultaneity, or of the relativity of motion is in any way involved in Einstein’s prediction of, or formulas for, the deflection of light”;
"The many and elaborate eclipse expeditions have, therefore, been given a fictitious importance. Their results can neither prove nor disprove the relativity theory… (Poor, 1930). *
From Brown (1967), we learn that Eddington could not wait to get out to the world community that Einstein’s theory was confirmed. What Eddington based this on was a premature assessment of the photographic plates. Initially, stars did “appear” to bend as they should, as required by Einstein, but then, according to Brown, the unexpected happened: several stars were then observed to bend in a direction transverse to the expected direction and still others to bend in a direction opposite to that predicted by relativity.
The absurdity of the data collected during the Eclipse of 1919 was demonstrated by Poor
(1930), who pointed out that 85% of the data were discarded from the South American eclipse due to “accidental error”, i.e., it contradicted Einstein’s scale constant. By a strange coincidence, the 15% of the “good” data were consistent with Einstein’s scale constant. Somehow, the stars that did not conform to Einstein’s theories conveniently got temporarily shelved-and the myth began.
So, based on a handful of ambiguous data points, 200 years of theory, experimentation and observation were cast aside to make room for Einstein. Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking (1999). It is difficult to comprehend how Hawking could comment that
*“The new theory of curved space-time was called general relativity. It was confirmed in spectacular fashion in 1919, when a British expedition to West Africa observed a slight shift in the position of stars near the sun during an eclipse. Their light, as Einstein had predicted, was bent as it passed the sun. Here was direct evidence that space and time were warped”. *
Does Hawking honestly believe that a handful of data points, massaged more thoroughly than a side of Kobe beef, constitutes the basis for overthrowing a paradigm that had survived over two centuries of acid scrutiny?
Was space and time being warped, or the interpretation of the flimsy data?
The real question, though, is: “Where was Einstein in all this?”
Surely, by the time he wrote his 1935 paper, he must have known of the work of Poor:
“The actual stellar displacements, if real, do not show the slightest resemblance to the predicted Einstein deflections: they do not agree in direction, in size, or the rate of decrease with distance from the sun”.
Why didn’t he go on the record and address a paper that directly contradicted his work? Why haven’t the followers of Einstein tried to set the record straight with respect to the bogus data of 1919?
AMDG
