MacTutor
Mathematicians Of The Day
29th May
On this day in 1919, there was a total eclipse of the sun which Arthur Eddington observed at Principe Island in West Africa. Photographs he took confirmed the prediction of Einstein's General theory of Relativity that light passing close to the sun would be deflected by its gravitational field.
Click on Ⓟ for a poster.
Born:
- 1834: William Jack Ⓟ
- 1882: Harry Bateman Ⓟ
- 1885: Finlay Freundlich Ⓟ
- 1893: Charles Loewner Ⓟ
- 1911: George Szekeres Ⓟ
- 1918: David Rees Ⓟ
- 1929: Günter Lumer Ⓟ
- 1957: Jean-Christophe Yoccoz Ⓟ
Died:
- 1660: Frans van Schooten Ⓟ
- 1917: William Niven Ⓟ
- 1962: Arnold Walfisz Ⓟ
- 1978: Guglielmo Righini Ⓟ
- 1999: John Knopfmacher Ⓟ
- 2005: Kazimierz Urbanik Ⓟ
Quotation of the day
From Finlay Freundlich
The modern theory of relativity of Mr Einstein predicts an influence of any field of gravitation upon light passing near to the sun. The gravitation would have, according to the investigation of Einstein, the effect of deflecting the ray of the star, and Mr Einstein asked me if I would try to prove his results by observations.
