THE 1919 ECLIPSE:A CELEBRITY IS BORN

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The 1919 eclipse: a celebrity is born

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Einstein shot to fame in 1919 when a team of astronomers led by Arthur Eddington found that the light from a distant star can be bent by the Sun, as predicted by relativity. But as Matthew Stanley explains, Eddington's expedition was partly motivated by a desire to heal the wounds between Britain and Germany after the First World War.

In the spring of 1919, while Europe was just beginning to recover from the effects of the First World War, teams of British astronomers thousands of miles from home laboured to measure a tiny effect predicted by an obscure German scientist. This scientist was Albert Einstein, and when those astronomers presented their results he would move from little-known physicist to global celebrity. How did this dramatic turn of events come to be?