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right. But Eddington was not to be deterred: "It looked as was confirmed in spectacular fashion in 1919, when a British though the effort, so far as the Principe expedition was con- expedition to West Africa observed a slight shift in the position cerned, might have been abortive"; "We developed the pho- of stars near the sun during an eclipse. Their light, as Einstein tographs, two each night for six nights after the eclipse... The had predicted, was bent as it passed the sun. Here was direct cloudy weather upset my plans and J had to treat the measures evidence that space and time were warped". Does Hawking in a different way from what I intended; consequently I have not honestly believe that a handful of data points, massaged more been able to make any preliminary announcement of the result" thoroughly than a side of Kobe beef, constitutes the basis for (emphasis added) (Clark, ibid.). overthrowing a paradigm that had survived over two centuries of Actually, Eddington's words speak volumes about the result. acid scrutiny? As soon as he found one shred of evidence that was consistent The real question, though, is: "Where was Einstein in all with "Einstein's" general relativity theory, he immediately pro- this?" Surely, by the time he wrote his 1935 paper, he must claimed it as proof of the theory. Is this science? have known of the work of Poor: "The actual stellar displace- Where were the astronomers when Eddington presented his ments, if real, do not show the slightest resemblance to the pre- findings? Did anyone besides Eddington actually look at the dicted Einstein deflections: they do not agree in direction, in photographic plates? Poor did, and he completely repudiated the size, or the rate of decrease with distance from the sun". Why findings of Eddington. This should have given pause to any eth- didn't he go on the record and address a paper that directly con- ical scientist. tradicted his work? Why haven't the followers of Einstein tried Here are some quotes from Poor's summary: "The mathemati- to set the record straight with respect to the bogus data of 1919? cal formula, by which Einstein calculated his deflection of 1.75 What makes this so suspicious is that both the instruments and seconds for light rays passing the edge of the physical conditions were not conducive the sun, is a well known and simple formu- to making measurements of great precision. la of physical optics"; "Not a single one of As pointed out in a 2002 Internet article by the fundamental concepts of varying time, the British Institute of Precise Physics, the or warped or twisted space, of simultane- cap cameras used in the expeditions were ity, or of the relativity of motion is in any Based on a handful of accurate to only 1/25th of a degree. This way involved in Einstein's prediction of, or . . meant that just for the cap camera uncer- formulas for, the deflection of light"; "The ambiguous data points, tainty alone, Eddington was reading values many and elaborate eclipse expeditions 2 rs of theor over 200 times too precise. have, therefore, been given a fictitious 00 yea $0 t eo Ys McCausland (2001) quotes the former importance. Their results can neither experimentation and Editor of Nature, Sir John Maddox: "They renee dprve mly-eon” | observation were cast | (commen and dingo] vee boon From Brown (1967), we learn that aside to make room is not so well documented is that the mea - Eddington couldn't wait to get it out to the for Einstein surements in 1919 were not particularly world community that Einstein's theory . accurate"; "In spite of the fact that experi- Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking. was confirmed. What Eddington based this on was a premature assess- ment 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 ina 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 mental evidence for relativity seems to have been very flimsy in 1919, Einstein's enormous fame has remained intact and his theory has ever since been held to be one of the highest achievements of human thought" (emphasis added). It is clear that from the outset Eddington was in no way interested in testing "Einstein's" theory; he was only interested in confirming it. One of the motivating factors in Eddington's decision to promote Einstein was that both men shared a demonstrated by Poor (1930), who similar political persuasion: pacifism. pointed out that 85% of the data were To suggest that politics played no role discarded from the South American eclipse due to "accidental in Eddington's glowing support of Einstein, one need ask only error", i.e., it contradicted Einstein's scale constant. By a one question: "Would Eddington have been so quick to support strange coincidence, the 15% of the "good" data were consistent Einstein if Einstein had been a hawk?" This is no idle observa- with Einstein's scale constant. Somehow, the stars that did not tion. Eddington took his role as the great peacemaker very seri- conform to Einstein's theories conveniently got temporarily ously. He wanted to unite British and German scientists after shelved—and the myth began. World War I. What better way than to elevate the "enemy" the- So, based on a handful of ambiguous data points, 200 years of orist Einstein to exalted status? In his zeal to become peace- theory, experimentation and observation were cast aside to make maker, Eddington lost the fundamental objectivity that is the room for Einstein. Yet the discredited experiment by Eddington essential demeanour of any true scientist. Eddington ceased to is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking (1999). It is diffi- be a scientist and, instead, became an advocate for Einstein. cult to comprehend how Hawking could comment that "The new theory of curved space-time was called general relativity... It Continued on page 76 ambiguous data points, 200 years of theory, experimentation and observation were cast for Einstein. experiment by Eddington is still quoted as gospel by Stephen Hawking. 48 = NEXUS Based ona handful of aside to make room Yet the discredited Continued on page 76 www.nexusmagazine.com DECEMBER 2003 — JANUARY 2004