Question

1. The year 2005 was celebrated the world over as the centenary of the discovery of the special
theory of relativity by Albert Einstein. Although Einstein published three major results during
1905, he became famous only 14 years later, or after 6 November 1919. The Einstein story is an
absorbing account of how a scientific achievement caught the popular imagination and made
international headlines.
2. It all began with Isaac Newton, who while propounding his universal law of gravitation,
wondered whether like all material objects in the universe, light is subject to gravitational
attraction. Would a ray of light striking a massive body, bend its path? This was the question
Newton posed, but did not answer. He may have felt that the effect, if any, would be too small to
measure with the techniques available to him.
3. In 1801, Johann Von Soldner carried out a calculation by assuming that a light was made of
tiny particles (Newton had called them corpuscles) which would be attracted by the massive
body. It would, therefore, bend the ray slightly. How slightly? A ray of light from a distant star
passing by the sun would be bent by an angle less than four thousandth part of a degree. This
conclusion was of academic interest since astronomers of the day were not capable of measuring
the effect.
4. After proposing special relativity, Einstein undertook the more ambitious task of producing a
general theory of relativity that incorporated in it the phenomenon of gravity. His early attempts
led him to the conclusion no different from Soldner’s as far as the bending of light was
concerned. By 1911, he felt confident of this new theory and urged astronomers to verify it.
5. The astronomers, too, were by this time confident of being able to make the required
measurements. This meant checking if the direction of a star changed slightly when it was
passing behind the Sun. But how does one see a star so close to the Sun? The answer is, when the
Sun is totally eclipsed.
6. Total solar eclipses are rare events visible from very limited zones on the earth. In 1912,
Argentinian astronomers went to Brazil to make the measurements, only to be thwarted by a
cloudy sky. A second attempt by German astronomers in 1914 to observe the eclipse in Crimea
was prevented by the onset of the First World War. Nevertheless, this aborted attemptbackdrop of a portrait of
Isaac Newton. Would the results show him (and Soldner) to be right or would the new (and
weird) theory of Einstein be favoured? The suspense was broken by Astronomer Royal Sir Frank
Dyson whose account, followed by reports from Eddington and Crommelin, upheld Einstein’s
prediction. The audience felt the thrill of history being made.
11. Despite the euphoria, several scientists were skeptical and would have liked more data. They
were right. The observational errors were much larger than they realized at the time and did not
warrant a clear-cut judgment on that day. Only in the 1970s did astronomers using radio and
microwave observations obtain a clear decision in favour of Einstein.
12. Hindsight informs us that luck intervened on several occasions during the episode. Einstein’s
earlier wrong prediction escaped detection. Be that as it may, the 1919 meeting consecrated
Einstein as the greatest scientist of the last century.
1.1. (i) Einstein has two fold achievements to his credit. They are (1)………………………and
(2)…………………………… 1
(ii) Johann von Soldner’s discovery only gathered academic interest because ………….. 1
(a) the common man was unaffected
(b) it was difficult to for him to prove his discovery
(c) it was not possible to measure the outcome
(d) all the above
(iii) The inability of the astronomers to make their measurement was a blessing in
disguise for Einstein because…………………………. 1
(iv) Lady luck was shining brightly on Einstein because… 1
(a) the weather had favoured his wrong calculation
(b) there were observation errors that went undetected
(c) he was acclaime

Answer 1

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Answer 2

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