SciFri Extra: A Relatively Important Eclipse

Science Friday

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Natural Sciences, Wnyc, Science, Friday, Life Sciences

4.4 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 28 May 2019

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

This week marks the 100th anniversary of an eclipse that forever changed physics and our understanding of the universe. In May 1919, scientists set out for Sobral, Brazil, and Príncipe, an island off the west coast of Africa, to photograph the momentarily starry sky during a total eclipse. Their scientific aim was to test whether the sun’s gravity would indeed bend light rays from faraway stars, as predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. After analyzing the data from the brief minutes of darkness, they declared Einstein correct. Carlo Rovelli, physicist and author, tells Ira the story.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is Science Friday. I'm Irafledo.
0:02.5	A hundred years ago this month,
0:04.2	astronomers look to the skies,
0:06.2	both to watch the majesty of a total solar eclipse,
0:09.6	and to gather data,
0:11.2	data that would test and support,
0:13.6	the ideas of a certain German scientist named Albert Einstein.
0:18.1	So we're opening up the sci-fri vault
0:20.6	to let physicist Carlo Rovelli explain
0:23.3	what an eclipse has to do with relativity. Albert Einstein, of course, is a household name today,
0:30.5	but he wasn't always, by way back a hundred years ago. He was in his mid-30s. He created his
0:37.1	general theory of relativity, but that theory
0:40.3	needed to be tested before anyone would really take it seriously. So in 1919, soon after the dust
0:47.6	settled from the First World War, two scientific teams sent out to take advantage of a unique
0:53.0	astronomical phenomenon, a total solar
0:56.0	eclipse to put Einstein's theory to the test. Let's take that trip back to yesterday year to
1:02.8	1919 to that most epic of eclipse experiments, and our guide is Carlo Revelli. He's the author of
1:10.0	Reality is Not What It Seems, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.
1:14.2	He's a theoretical physicist at Ex-Marcée University in France.
1:18.4	He joins us from Skype.
1:19.9	Welcome back, Carlo.
1:21.2	Hi. Thank you very much.
	...

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