Introduction

Under the startling headlines ‘Revolution in science: New theory of the Universe: Newtonian ideas overthrown’, the New York Times reported, in 1919, the effects of Sir Arthur Eddington’s dramatic confirmation of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and its prediction that a light ray from a distant star would ‘bend’ in the curved space close to the Sun:

Yesterday afternoon in the rooms of the Royal Society, at a joint session of the Royal and Astronomical Societies, the results obtained by British observers of the total solar eclipse of May 29 were discussed. The greatest possible interest had been aroused in scientific circles by the hope that rival theories of a fundamental physical problem would be put to the test, and there was a very large attendance of astronomers and physicists. It was generally accepted that the observations were decisive in verifying the prediction of the famous physicist, Einstein, stated by the President of the Royal Society as the most remarkable scientific event since the discovery of the planet Neptune. But there was a difference of opinion as to whether science had to face merely a new and unexplained fact, or to reckon with a theory that would completely revolutionize the accepted fundamentals of physics.

(New York Times 1919) ¹