ABSTRACT
The invitation to visit the city had been extended to Albert Einstein in person in Berlin by Arthur Fleming, chairman of the board of trustees of Caltech. This was at the suggestion of Richard Tolman, whose work on relativity theory had reached a critical stage. Much of the new work confirming relativity theory had been undertaken with the instrument, and Einstein scrutinized the 17-inch image composed of dark spots set against a writhing cauldron of Dantean chaos. Einstein knew of the Caltech professor’s papers in mathematical physics and of the observational work being conducted at Mount Wilson concerning the nature and size of the universe. Crucial to Einstein’s work, the velocity of light is one of the most fundamental constants of nature and according to the theory of relativity is the limiting velocity in the physical world. Word of Einstein’s change of positions echoed across the wires like crack of whip, catapulting Edwin Hubble into the eye of international fame.
