Sir Arthur Eddington's Grand Expedition (1919)

Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) was quite a lucky man. He was a Quaker, which helped keep him out of World War I. He also had a talent for being at the right place at the right time. A mathematically inclined English astronomer, he happened to be working as a secretary at the Royal Astronomical Society when Dutch astronomer Willem de Sitter (1872-1934)’s letters and papers on Einstein’s new theory of general relativity began arriving in England. Quick to comprehend the implications of Einstein’s ideas, already in 1916 Eddington became a supporter of Einstein. This despite the fact that the theory had been formulated by a German at a time when anti-German sentiments were at an all-time high in England due to the war. Eddington, a pacifist, was among the first to teach the theory in the West (both at Cambridge University and at a meeting of the British Association). In 1918, he also produced a report on the theory for the Physical Society¹. One issue however remained. The theory had no…