"The Einstein Jury" (Hunan Science and Technology Press, November 2023)
A translation of a new book by Canadian science historian Jeffrey Crelinsten, Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity, was released. This book introduces the academic debate on this epoch-making scientific theory in the early days of the birth of special and general relativity, especially through repeated astronomical observations and physical experiments. These discussions include not only legitimate academic questioning and controversy, as well as philosophical and physical incomprehension by many experts, but are accompanied by various anti-relativistic attacks. There are not only misunderstandings caused by academic mistakes, but also malicious slanders and attacks by academic improprietors, academic liars, anti-Semites and fascists, and the intensity of this is staggering.
Due to the fierce skepticism of anti-relativityists, the Nobel Prize jury failed to list the theory of relativity, one of the most important and brilliant scientific achievements in human history, among the reasons for awarding the Nobel Prize in physics.
This "trial" of the theory of relativity, which took place in the 20s of the last century and lasted for about ten years, has been briefly mentioned in ordinary scientific works, scientific history materials, and popular science books, without being described in detail. As a result, people who study, study, and teach the theory of relativity are not impressed by it. I thought that with the support of Planck, Nernst and other first-class scholars, the special theory of relativity was quickly accepted by the academic community, and I thought that once the three major verifications of gravitational redshift, light deflection, and perihelion precession of Mercury's orbit were completed, the general theory of relativity was recognized by the academic community, and I never imagined that the theory of relativity would go through such a harsh "academic trial" after its birth.
Of course, facts speak louder than words. The results of experimental observations and the gradual deepening of academic understanding eventually turned those who participated in the "trial" of the theory of relativity into "witnesses" and advocates of the theory of relativity. In fact, a similar situation occurred during the spread of the theory of relativity in China.
The author has been engaged in the research, teaching, and popularization of the general theory of relativity for a long time, and has consulted many works and historical materials on the theory of relativity, including many biographies and commentaries on Einstein, but I have not seen such a detailed and wonderful introduction to this historical stage, which is really eye-opening.
The author of this book was able to complete such a book thanks to his solid and comprehensive academic foundation and his active, diligent and pragmatic academic style. He has an academic background in physics, astronomy, and history of science, and has collected extensive materials from many scientific research institutes, schools, and library and information institutions around the world, and has conducted in-depth exchanges with the parties and insiders, so as to comprehensively and correctly grasp a large number of valuable historical materials.
Mr. Pan Tao, the translator of this book, has been engaged in the translation of books about Einstein and the theory of relativity for a long time, and has published excellent translations such as "Einstein's Mistakes".
Reading this book will help readers fully understand the growth process of the theory of relativity, and also help young students understand the bumpy road of scientific research.
——Zhao Zheng (Professor, Department of Physics, Beijing Normal University, Former President of the Chinese Society of Gravitational and Relativistic Astrophysics)
Written by | Su Dao
The year 1919 is a particularly significant year in the history of science narratives about Albert Einstein and the theory of relativity: it was the year that an expedition led by the British astronomer Arthur Eddington successfully observed a solar eclipse on the island of Principe in West Africa, validating the prediction of general relativity that the light of a star would be deflected in the sun's gravitational field. Since then, Einstein and his theory of general relativity have "become famous all over the world".
General relativity has revolutionized the way humans have understood the universe for more than 300 years since Newton, giving a completely different connotation to familiar concepts such as space and time. But when we are faced with such an ideological revolution, in addition to marveling at Einstein's creativity and insight, have we ever wondered why Copernicus's heliocentric theory was finally recognized after Kepler, Galileo and others tirelessly promoted and disseminated, and Einstein's theory is more difficult to understand and beyond the scope of our daily experience.
In fact, the situation is quite the opposite of what we often read in textbooks or popular science books. In the period before and after the observation of the solar eclipse in 1919, the scientific community paid great attention to Einstein and the general theory of relativity, in which doubts and objections were heard endlessly, and even became mainstream for a period of time. General relativity has three important predictions, all of which are actually astronomical predictions: the new precession of Mercury's perihelion, the gravitational redshift, and the deflection of light rays in the gravitational field. Therefore, whether you want to confirm or falsify the general theory of relativity, you can't do without the work of astronomers.
These astronomers are the protagonists of Canadian science historian Jeffrey Crelinsten's book Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity, and the numerous studies and observations they made between 1910 and 1925 around the testing of these predictions, as well as the controversy that followed, form the main content of the book. In the title of the book, Kreelingsten reminds us of the fierceness of the confrontation between the two men, by referring to the "jury" that only appears in court, and the book is a detailed "scientific court transcript" of many details that are crucial to the evaluation of the competition.
Since the middle of the 19th century, with the introduction of a series of physical methods into astronomical research, astronomy has gradually changed the previous research mode based on astrometry and orbit calculation, and has been deeply integrated with physics, and astrophysics was born. In the 20th century, physics became the backbone of astronomical research. If several of Einstein's important papers published in 1905, the "miracle year of physics", were still discussing physical problems, then general relativity, a new theory describing the structure of the universe and space-time, inevitably entered the field of astronomy and had the potential to completely reshape this field, which naturally attracted the attention of astronomers.
"Eddington verified the general theory of relativity with his observations of an eclipse" is only an extremely simplified and misleading version of this history, and "The Jury of Einstein" reconstructs this history in its entirety, which is an important value of this book. The astronomers presented in the book are not only numerous, but also have very different perspectives, demonstrating a scientific community that is intricately intertwined.
But the German astronomer Erwin Freundlich, whom Kreelingsten writes a lot about, is a "little man." Among the followers of general relativity, he does not have the same status as Kepler and Galileo for heliocentrism, and it is difficult to find his name in the merit book, but the paradox of history is vividly reflected in him. Despite the lack of support at the Royal Astronomical Observatory in Berlin, where he worked, and the suppression of the director, he made every effort to carry out relevant research and observations, hoping to provide strong support for this new theory.
Einstein's 1907 equivalence principle, the prototype of the general theory of relativity, calculated that the deflection angle of stellar rays passing over the sun was 0.87 arc seconds. In 1915, after establishing a complete general theory of relativity, he recalculated and revised the angle to 1.74 arc seconds, twice the previous value.
The actual magnitude of this deflection angle will need to be measured at the time of a total solar eclipse, so astronomers will need to wait for the right moment. In 1914, Freundlich finally waited for the opportunity to lead an observation team to the Crimean Peninsula in Russia to observe a total solar eclipse. However, at the outbreak of World War I, Germany and Russia were belligerents, so the team was arrested (later released and returned to Germany) and failed to carry out the planned observations. Imagine if Freundelich's observation team had completed the observations on a clear day and the quality of the data had been satisfactory, and the results of this observation would have overturned Einstein's prediction in 1907. In other words, the blow to the ambitious Freundlich actually "saved" the general theory of relativity, giving Einstein time to refine the theory. Unfortunately, he also left the opportunity to go down in history to Eddington.
Eddington is a central figure in this history. One of his stories has been widely circulated: a reporter told him that he had heard that there were only three people in the world who really understood general relativity, and he paused and said that he was wondering who the third person was. Whether it was just a joke he made, or whether he was really so confident, what he said was not the truth. In this period of history restored by Creilingsten, the image of Eddington is also three-dimensional. In fact, when he led the famous observation and announced the victory of general relativity to the world, Eddington did not really understand the theory, and it was only in the following years that he gradually perfected his understanding. More importantly, when Eddington processed the observational data, he consciously chose those data that supported Einstein's prediction and ignored other data, which obviously did not conform to the norms of scientific research and was criticized by many astronomers at the time. The observation of a total solar eclipse in 1919 brought general relativity into the public eye, but the results did not convince the astronomical community, and there is a story that astronomers continued to organize many observations of total solar eclipses to test general relativity.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the physicist "Big Four" also had the largest number of astronomers, the largest of which were the United States and Germany, followed by France and the United Kingdom. Therefore, the astronomers involved in this race to verify the general theory of relativity are mainly from these four countries, and they also form two camps, Europe and the United States, with the Atlantic Ocean as the boundary. If we detach ourselves from the observational data and mathematical analysis that Kreelingsten meticulously lists in his book, and start from Freudlich and Eddington, two representatives of German and English astronomy, to explore the state and changes of astronomy and even science as a whole in the context of the grand era, we may be able to gain more insights.
The book focuses on a time period of revolutionary changes in physics (and astronomy) (in addition to general relativity, quantum mechanics also flourished) and a time of international change. The First World War had a profound impact on Europe, which was at this time the center of science, and science was naturally exposed to this upheaval. A race to test the general theory of relativity, not only within the astronomical community, but also between nations and antagonisms, a tone that accompanies the narrative throughout the book. A British expedition tested a German theory shortly after the end of World War I, which was considered a sign of a return to Europe for peace, and even for the triumph of reason over barbarism. At the same time, however, the Times reported that Einstein was a "Swiss Jew" and avoided the fact that he was conducting research in Germany, and that an important reason for the German scientific community's efforts to obtain funding for research was that "it was up to the Germans to test the German theories", as exemplified by Freun Delicht's efforts to raise funds to build the "Einstein Tower" for astrophysical research. We often say that "science has no borders, but scientists have a homeland", and this history provides good material for us to discuss whether science and scientists can transcend politics and transcend national borders.
In the first half of the 20th century, the center of world science shifted from Germany to the United States, and one of the landmark events was Einstein's departure from Germany to the United States and his joining of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, as well as the transatlantic movement of a group of prominent physicists from Europe to the United States. In this book, we can see that since the beginning of the 20th century, with the take-off of the American economy and the increase in government and private funding for scientific research, there have been signs of this "shift" in the field of astronomy.
On the one hand, astronomical research has high requirements for observatories and telescopes, and the United States vigorously built observatories at this time, which soon caught up with and surpassed Europe and had the material basis for the development of astronomy; on the other hand, American astronomers represented by George Ellery Hale realized that the American astronomical community lacked theoretical aspects, and actively recruited well-known European scholars to join in with superior observation conditions. Under this general trend of "shifting", the American astronomical community gradually got rid of the image of the nouveau riche and began to play a pivotal role in the world astronomical community.
So American astronomers were not spared in this race, first learning about the dynamics of research on the other side of the Atlantic, and then jumping into it. In addition to the intra-European rivalry, there is also a competition in astronomy on both sides of the Atlantic. American astronomers joined the "jury" this time, and many observatories became research centers, which can be regarded as a good start for leading the world's astronomical research in the following century.
A "jury" of astronomers decided the fate of general relativity in a scientific court, but the most glorious achievement of human reason did not receive overwhelming support at first, but in the continuous confrontation, the truth became clearer and clearer, and the result of the "trial" was finally recognized by the scientific community. In fact, all readers of The Einstein Jury also constitute a special "jury" – our identities are more diverse and more in line with the requirements of jury composition. Although we may not have the ability to test the truth of the general theory of relativity, we can make our own judgments on the nature of science, the development of science, and the relationship between science and society with the help of a wonderful "scientific court transcript".
This article is supported by the Science China Star Program
Producer: Science Popularization Department of China Association for Science and Technology
Producer: China Science and Technology Press Co., Ltd., Beijing Zhongke Xinghe Culture Media Co., Ltd
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