responsible for. how the people inside the towers held the door for each other, helped each other down the stairs . the kids, families in canada who made apple pies aparranged to truck them to new york across the border. the woman in iowa who set about to make a quilt for every single 9/11 family member. i think that's the underlying theme, is the human compassion that saw the light of day on september 11th and afterwards. >> well, thank you for those, and thank you all for all of the insight and perspective that you offered us today. you're watching american history tv. explore our nation's past every

saturday on c-span2. good evening and welcome to einstein's war, a program in partnership with linda hall, library and the national world war i museum and memorial. two cultural institutions located right here in kansas city, missouri, and we are delighted to be able to stand up at intersection of science and history and bring you great conversations like this one. now, it's my pleasure and my honor to introduce the president of linda hall library. lisa bauer. >> thank you, laura. we also are pleased to present tonight's program in association with the national world war i museum and memorial. for the past several years, our two institutions have worked together to present programs on a wide range of topics illustrating the role played by science in the first world war. tonight's event, einstein's war,

how relativity triumphed among the vicious nationalism of world war i discusses the effects of that war on the global scientific community and the obstacles that one member of that community, albert einstein, had to overcome. on behalf of everyone at the linda hall library, thank you for joining us this evening, and now i will turn it back to laura to introduce tonight's distinguished speaker. >> thank you very much. it is truly my honor to introduce dr. matthew stanley. he is a professor of the had history of science the new york university. he obtained his ph.d. from harvard. he is the author of einstein's war. that story of how passism and friendship led to a scientific

revolution. he wrote practical mystical and science and a. edison and maxwell's demon, science and religion in history, and potentially my favorite introductory remark in my ten-year career here, he is also a host of what the f? a podcast you can find on all of your streaming services. so go to your streaming service of choice. it's a podcast. i think you might enjoy. but if you want to test it out before you start downloading that, you're in for a treat. you've got an hour ahead. again, we welcome your questions, but even more so, we welcome you, dr. matt stanley. >> thanks. thanks to the national world war i museum and memorial as well as the linda hall library for

putting this together. i am dlieted to be here. i think i am supposed to say that i'd rather be there in person, but as i'm watching the locations that people are putting into the chat i have to say it's extraordinary that i am going to get to talk to people from coast to coast and literally afternoon the world. so that's perhaps working out better than if i had actually been there in person. so we are here, of course, to talk about einstein tonight. let me get my screen going properly here. and einstein in some sense we feel like we all know, right? his name is synonymous with genius. he is the icon of science. he is literally the image you think of when you think of science and scientists. and kind of what i wanted to talk about tonight, the story i

wanted to tell, is how that came to be. and in some sense how extraordinary and unusual it was that in the space of just a few weeks einstein goes from being an obscure academic to literally being recognized all around the world. and one of the aspects of the story that i think are particularly fascinating is that he didn't have much to do with this sudden change. that is, it wasn't just because he was a genius. he became famous because he was in a particular place at a particular time and specifically that was in berlin during the middle of the yaet war. he was blockaded. he was starving. it might not sound like this would be conducive to a scientific revolution, but there was one extra element to the story that made all of the difference. and that was einstein's friends. that is, it wasn't just him. it was a network of people he was working with. and we are going to begin the story not with perhaps the old

sagely einstein that we all know well, nor the young heroic einstein, whose exploits get told sometimes, but rather the middle aged einstein. he is not a patent clerk any more. he held a couple of professorships. and as we are kicking up the story, it's the summer of 1914 and he is moving to berlin from switzerland. he is actually moving back to germany for the first time. he was born there in the southern town of aum to a secular jewish family. he came to really dislike german forms of authority and classroom instruction and through various experiences he became what he describes as a socialist internationalist. so switzerland was a very comfortable place for him, and moving back to germany was a matter of some emotional discomfort. he remembered his different childhood there. but he had been sought after,

recruited by some of the finest minds in german science, in particular because of his contributions to what will eventually become the theory of quantum mechanics. but it's important to note that even though he is being row crouted for this job, he is not yet famous. certainly no one outside of physics knew his name and really most people within physics wouldn't have known his name either unless they were working on this specific aspect of quantum theory. and while einstein was recruited to work on the quantum theory, his baby, what he really wanted to spend his scientific time working onk was his theory of relativity. and the theory of relativity comes in a couple of parts. the first was the special theory of relativity that he published in 1905. as the name suggests that, applied to very specific and restricted situations. it wasn't applicable to many different kind of circumstances that you might be interested in.

what einstein wanted to and he hadn't had the time to do this by 1914 was the general theory of relativity. this was an attempt to extend his conclusions from 1905 to literally the entire universe. to all of the conceivable situations in which one might be interested in the laws of nature. and he hopes that moving to this new position in berlin he'll finally be able to do this. he has very few teaches responsibilities, few administrative responsibilities. but the hiccup, turns out, that he had been having an affair with a woman in berlin for some years. so upon moving to berlin with his family, instead of being able to throw himself into his science, he had to deal with some extremely rocky relationship issues. and in fact, his first wife leaves him and takes the children. einstein is devastated by this. he had very deep connection to his children.

but of course this is all his own fault. so his immediate thing he has to do is find a place to sleep. he crashes on his friend fritz hober's couch for a while and he counsels him through the emotional wreckage of the end of his marriage. eventually, einstein is able to settle down and work. as i said, while he is hoping to work on is his theory of general relativity. now, general relativity is the idea that the right way to understand the universe is not as a universe made of space and made of time, but rather this four-dimensional conglomeration of space and time in which we three-dimensional creatures don't really experience the universe in the right way. so in einstein's universe, space and time are warped by the presence of planets and stars. we talk about the fabric of

space time being able to curve and stretch, and a lot of the strange things that we associate with relativity, things like clocks running slow, twining aging at different rates, energy turning into matter, matter turning into energy are all consequences of the sort of grand vision that einstein has of the right way to approach the universe in a scientific and philosophical sense. unfortunately, for einstein he skofrs fairly on in the process of developing general relativity that the mathematics are extremely complicated and einstein was not a very good student in college. so it turns u-turns out he skipped the mathematics classes that he needed to develop his particular theory. so in a rather extraordinary turn of events he actually goes back to his friend whose notes he copied so he could pass that class, marcel grossman, murd

here, who was by this time a professional mathematician to ask him for help learning the mathematics he was supposed to have learned in college. as the story goes, einstein flings open grossman's apartment door and says, you must help me or i'll go crazy. so by 1914, grossman helped einstein figure out the mathematical super structure of the theory. sea lion einstein this been working on the scientific meaning of the theory. he published by this point but his draft version seemed pretty good. in particular by the summer of 1914 he achieved a very important milestone. it's not just that he had sort of formally put the equations out there, but rather he had gotten the theory to a point where it could be tested. this is an extremely important thing for any scientific theory. particularly, for einstein's theory because relativity so so strange, so alien to our ordinary experience, that he knew that he needed some kind of

empirical test, a physical thing in the world that he could point to and say this is why you should believe that my theory is right. and the particular test that we're talking about here is three class of tests. this is the one that is at hand in 1914. it's what is sometimes called the gravitational deflection of light. so einstein's theory predicts that gravity. pull not just on heavy objects like tables and professors, but also on the most ef femoral of things, like light. the path the light should be pent bent by gravity the same way the path of a thrown ball is bent. the effect is tiny and you need an extremely strong gravitational source to observe this effect. the way he figured out you could see this effect was if you waited for a solar eclipse and then looked for a star that was supposed to be right near the edge of the sun's disc. then the gravity of the sun as

the light beam came from that star would be bent. it would be bent by the sun's gravity. from our point of view here on earth, what we see that bending of light looks like is that the star appears to be in the wrong place in the sky. that is, it's displaced where it should be and the effect is very small. so you need very sophisticated equipment and skilled observers to see it. and you also have to wait for a solar eclipse, which is somewhat rare. fortunately for einstein, very soon after he arrives in berlin there is a solar eclipse predicted to occur, specifically in the cremeea, which at the time was part of russia. and one of einstein's sort of acolytes, a fan of relatively as it were, is a strained astronomer, who agrees to go to russia with a crew and all of the sophisticated equipment and observe the solar eclipse and try to take a photograph of this tiny displacement to prove that einstein is right. at this time this is a totally

normal thing for scientists to do, to cross borders in these kinds of scientific projects. in fact, there was like a half dozen crews of astronomers in the crimea to observe the solar eclipse, not necessarily to test einstein's theory, but the eclipse. so einstein is biting his nails back in berlin waiting to hear the results from this expedition, the rest of the world doesn't care in the slightest. einstein's theory is of no interest to anyone expect a tiny handful of people. what everyone else in the world literally is paying attention to in august 1914 is the kulyomin augs of the long arguing geopolitical conflict, the arms race, the political tension, and then of course the spark with gab row -- shooting the austrian air and triggering the chain of war declarations among all of

queen victoria's grandchildren that initiate the beginning of world war i. scientists watched had happened much many of them hoped that they could hold themselves above the fray, right. science is supposed to be an internal enterprise, disconnected from politics and conquests. in particular, as the war began, the british association for the advancement of science was holding its annual meeting, an international meeting as it turned out, and many of the scientists there said this explicitly, the british scientists twisted the health of the german scientists, and this seemed like a great moment showing how scientists could rise above this new war. one of the scientists in attendance there was this man, arthur stanley eddington. he was an astronomer, astrophysicist, professor at

cambridge. very important for the story. also a quaker, a passivist and suburbist. he was pleased to see at the meeting these international outreaches but his hopes were almost immediately dashed. in fact, the moment when froin lick was supposed to observe the solar ellipse he is arrested by russian police as a german spy as spends much of the war locked up in a prison. scientists on both sides go into hostile national camps essentially. german int lek chattahoochee chuls here give a famous declaration declaring solidarity with the german army, including many of einstein's friends. british scientists say germans can no longer be trusted to do science. this is a particularly famous hh turner, one the great astronomers british scientists at the time was not -- the

national rejoicing that puts the cold-bloodedness of former pirates to shame. is it not a fact that german men of science have gone out of their way to declare adhesion to these things? they are removed from the conception of the true -- science. british and german scientists attack each other in print. the german nobel prize winner calls for german scientists to no longer cite english papers or use english scientific terms. he also accuses british scientists of taking credit for german work and literally the treven is cut across the telegraph lines that scientists used to communicate data back and forth. scientific journals are withdrawn. no longer sent to enemy countries. british scientists working in germany and austria are arrested. german scientists in britain are detained.

and einstein finds himself horrified. and in particular, he discovers that he is essentially the only pacifist among the science community in berlin. he joins peace organizations. he tries to speak up against the war and is largely ignored because he is a person of no consequence at this time. he writes to a friend of his at that time saying i love science twice as much when i feel so painfully for almost all of my fellows about their emotional miss judges and sad consequences. we scientists must foster international relations all the more and distance ourselves from the coarse emotions of the mob. unfortunately, we have had to suffer serious disappointments even among scientists in this regard. and einstein felt these issues essentially immediately. so as soon as the war begins, the royal navy blockades germany and germany falls short on food within a week of the beginning of the war. and hundreds of thousands of

germans die of starvation in that first winter after the war begins and einstein is nearly one of them. he is starving. he is sick. he only survives because he is getting food packages sent from his friends in switzerland. he loses 50 pounds in two months. he complains that his hands are always cold and he can't write. for much the time he is bedridden. he works from bed in his pa a jam as. he writes to fundamental papers of modern kozmology while under the blayne blankets. he feels isolated. one of the places he looks for sort of intellectual and social come pannian ship is the netherlands. he is able to go and visit friends there. in particular, the three gentlemen on the right side of this photograph are his dutch physics friends. and he enjoys being around other internationalists, people with

left-wing politics. so those are the people he discusses relativity with. so these become essentially the only people in the world who know about his work on general relativity, and this is because the blockade, as i suggested, stops scientific papers just as well as it stops armaments. and who on the other side of the trenches would want to hear what german scientist had to say in any case? so one of his dutch friends the, the tall gentleman in back with the pointy beard, an astronomer, decides he is going to fix this, that the world should hear about einstein's work, and it so happens that he speaks excellent english. he sends a letter to the royal astronomical society in london describing einstein's new theory and it so happens that the secretary of the royal astronomical society, the man who opens the letter in london, is eddington. i can't overemphasize how lucky einstein was that eddington

opened that let earp. and this is because, as i have been suggesting, few british scientists were willing to even think about a german theory or an enemy theory as many scientists talked about it at the time. eddington was a pacifist and internationalist and thought that international relations within science were absolutely critical. he was also one of the very few people who understood the complicated mathematics that was written. so it so happens that he had chosen the one correspondent in britain willing and able to think about einstein and grapple with relativity. so eddington is excited about the science. he recognizes the significance of relativity but he, like einstein, is feeling isolated politically. there are very few people he can talk to in england within the scientific community who shared his views. and eddington was worried about the future of international science. it seemed to him it might be ruptured forever. he wasn't naive.

he knew there would be wartime disrungs but suggesting that germans as a people could no longer be trusted to do science seemed to him absurd and would surely do damage for the long term and he had been working hard to get his colleagues to think in international ways and moderate some of their anti-german hatred and he does this through practical terms. points out that the problems of astronomy are worldwide, the lines of latitude and longitude don't care about national boundaries, but he also appeals to philosophical idealistic perhaps even spiritual concerns. he says it is -- there is the conviction that the pursuit of truth whether in the minute structure of the atom or the vast system of the stars is a bond transcending human differences and you uses it as a barrier fortifying natural feuds is degradation of science. it's interesting to note what eddington is doing here, taking the pacifist techniques used by

his fellow quakers to protest the war in general and applying them specifically to the realm of science. and these strategies include things like humanizing the enemy, making contacts across the trenches and showing the world that the world is a better place united than it is divided. he invites his colleagues. they think of a symbolic german, but your friend, the german scientists who you have been attending conferences with for decades, call him a pirate, a baby killer, tried to work up a little fury. it says the worship of -- love of empire and patriotism in the perversion of skiebs have brought the world to disaster. as eddington is grappling with issues of internationalism and science, einstein appears in his in box and he sees an opportunity. so einstein for him can be a symbol of science reaching above the chasm formed by the world, it depended on international

cooperation, english and german scientists working together. einstein was perfect for this not just because he was a brilliant physicist, but also because einstein was pacifists, too, he was opposed to his own nation's worst excesses. as a peaceful german, einstein could be just what a quake erskinetist needed to convince his colleagues of the aurar of their own ways. that is relativity could show what was lost when science became consumed by this kind of wartime hatred. but remember at this point no one knew who einstein was. or knew his theory. so eddington has to dedicate the next couple of years of his life to learning relativity, popularizing it, and getting the english-speaking world excited about it. he has to do all of of this without any direct communication with einstein. the blockade is still on. they cannot send letters or tall grams. they can't really even send letters back and forth through the neutral netherlands because that would look like espionage.

in fact, many scientists are arrested while trying to transmit data back and forth. eddington is essentially on his own. he does manage to teach himself relativity, but like einstein, he realizes that persuading people of the importance of the theory would require a test. this physical assertion that the theory should be true. so he wants to do that same eclipse test that had been attempted in 1914. and an eclipse was coming up in 1919 across the southern hemisphere, but it was not at all clear that he would actually be able to do test. would be the war be over? would he be able to travel? he would have to go thousands of miles. so he get his colleagues to support a complicated and expensive expedition to test the theory. all these are unclear to him in 1916 when he begins the project of embracing prel relativity. now, he does have some success and just as he was making progress convincing his col

tleegs support an eclipse expedition, eddington found himself suddenly in danger of being pulled from the observatory and sent to the front. the war by this point had killed so many men that he was to be conscripted and as a quaker he would refuse to fight. he would be a conscientious objector. conscientious objection was allowed status but there was little guidance what should happen to someone who should claim pacifist ox to the war. among the scientific community he was the only one. the vast majority you have scientists were working on technical projects for the war or volunteered to go fight. so there was essentially unprecedented. and if what was going to happen to eddington was what happened to most quakers who claimed conscientious objection, he would be sent to a prison camp. these were terrible, terrible places. conscientious objectors were despised and treated extremely

badly, many died in the karms. if eddington did not want to be sent to the camp and perhaps to him more importantly to be able to continue to work on einstein and relativity, he had to appear in front of a tribunal, cruise missiles to justify his conscientious objection and explain why he should be allowed to continue to work on science. one of his major difficulties was getting people to understand that he was both a scientist and person of genuine religious faith. it seemed like a contradiction. so many of. members of the tribunal rejected his petition on those grounds. now, he ends up getting saved at the last second because he was old friends with frank dyson, who is the astronomer royal, the top scientist in britain at the time. and dyson wrote to the tribunals and argued it was important for british scientific prestige to do the test. that is, if eddington was allowed to do this test of einstein's theory, that would show that english science was

superior to german science. in what i think is a wonderful twist of ironty, eddington is allowed to do his pacifist expedition on the grounds it would be good for the british empire. so eddington had been free to plan for the expedition. would the war allow it to proceed? as i showed a moment ago, the eclipse in 1919 that they were hoping to observe arcs across the southern hem fear from africa to south america. britain was under blockade at this point and not many astronomers are likely to try to run the blockade, so they had to hope that the circumstances of the war would change in some material way. so as they are planning for this throughout 1918 they are hoping that things are going to go better than they have been. in fact, that is what happens. in 1918, the german offensive

runs out of steam. observation /* over extend themselves and the germans could not win on the battlefield. the kaiser flees to the netherlands and november 10 and the republic was declared in berlin. november 11, next day, famously, the guns finally fall silent. we actually have einstein's journal for that day and it's a very shortentry. he says, class was canceled because of revolution. and einstein gleefully watches the collapse of the military state he had been resisting for four years and his socialist politics that had caused him so much trouble during the war were suddenly a blessing and this new republic. he writes to a friend, i am enjoying the reputation of an irreproachable socialist. as a consequence, yesterday's heroes are coming to me and the opinion i could break their fall into emptiness. funny world. and in fact berlin is something of a scary place.

immediately after the end of the war, einstein finds himself climbing over barricades. he has to negotiate for the release of deans that are being held hostage by he will ref lougaries. so it's important to emphasize here at this point even though there is an armistice on, that is the fighting that stopped, there is no peace treaty, so the british blockade actually continues. so einstein is still starving at this point. and he still can't communicate with his scientific allies in other countries. and the british are maintaining the blockade with the explicit intent of making things as difficult as possible for germany so that they can get the best conditions they can at the peace negotiations. now, eddington, once the

armistice comes on, finds himself working frantically because suddenly it's the end of 1918, it's going to take months to get to the southern hemisphere if they are going to do the observations, and they couldn't do any of the preparations that they had to during the war because, amongst other things, they couldn't get the materials and labor needed because of wartime restrictions. and they were going to have to leave in early march to make it to where they needed to go. for the observations. they manage to get a government grant for this, which is quite extraordinary given the financial situation of britain at the time. and the decision is made to send two expeditions just in case there is bad weather at one of the sites. so one team would be sent to brazil and the other team led by eddington would be sent to this tiny island of prince pay off the coast of africa. each team would take with them special cameras to take

photographs, hopefully, of the stars during the eclipse attic kind of tell some called an astro graphic good for capturing those sorts of images. the way you do an observation of this short, which was a technique well established by this point, is you get to the path of totality, that is where the eclipse is going to be, and you essentially build kind of an emergency observatory wherever that happens to be where you lay the telescope horizontally like so and then the cameras are sort of on the right side of the image here in the back of the tent and then in the front there is a round mirror there and its job is to reflect the image ever the sun, in this case the stars, down the photographic tube and that's driven by clockwork. so very steadily captures the image without any motion or blur. now, so the hope at the end of all this was they would get a series of photographs that they

could then, of the stars around the sun, that they could then compare to what the stars were supposed to look like when the sun wasn't there. and then they could measure how much the sun's gravity had distorted the position of the stars in the sky. and they actually, the predicted displacement, how much the star should have moved on the photographic plate, is 1/60th of a millimeter. a millimeter is tiny. there is about 25 millimeters in an inch. so that's less than one-one thousands ends of an inch. many say that's too small to measure. dyson says, no, astronomers measure sizes like that all the time. it's not easy, but it's a perfectly normal thing for us to do. you should have full confidence in our measurement of this thing. so eddington sort of works under the mathematics of this theory, that is, what should we expect

to see, and the way eddington presents is it this. einstein's theory predicts the amount the star moves in the sky is 1.75 arc seconds. don't worry with what an arc second is. it's a small amount that i'm talking about. and then for comparison, einstein says newton has a theory too. if we use newton's theory, the projection should be about half of what einstein projects. and then the third possibility is there is nothing at all. no deflection at all, and that wouldn't be very interesting. so at some point during the preparation for the expedition, he is explaining these three possibilities to a guy named cottingham who is going to be the technician going along with eddington on the expedition and keeping the machines rung. and he got it into his head kevin these three possibilities, the bigger the better.

what if we get double the einstein projection. is that going to be even better? then eddington will go mad and you'll have to come home alone. even as eddington and dyson are working very hard for all the logistical aspects of the expedition, they're also working to groom reporters in london about the expeditions and their significance. so when they came back months later with the results, there would be a public eager and ready to hear about this sort of titanic battle between einstein and newton. that's why he's framed that way, so as to make it this intellectual battle for the ages. once they have everything ready, eddington hops on one of the first post-war passenger ships headed south. he notes how strange it is to be outside the rationing that had been normal in the uk for so many years by this point, full bowls of sugar, large portions of meat. and they finally arrive at principe on april 26.

he had never been to principe. this is a long time before travel websites and let's go guides. principe is a little speck of an island in the middle of an ocean. it's thickly wooded. there is a big mountain in the middle. it's part of the portuguese empire. and it's what it was known for at the time, i think somewhat ironically, is it was covered in cocoa plantations that sold cocoa to the quaker chocolate factories back in britain. in fact, the plantation workers at the cocoa plantations were the ones that carried the equipment by hand through the jungle and set it up in the place where it needs to be. everything was set up up by may 16th, not two weeks before the eclipse is predicted to happen. and the astronomers have to begin practicing. these are very complicated systems that they have to be able to operate essentially in the dark during the eclipse, and

there will be no room for error. there is no do-over on this. they have to make sure they can carry out the experiment perfectly. and it's hard to overemphasize how nerve-racking the last few days before the eclipse are. years of planning, weeks of journeying, weeks of physically and mental preparation. this is all without knowing whether the sky would be clear at the critical moment. one cloud could have ruined everything. and in fact in brazil on the day of the eclipse, the day started off cloudy but then cleared at the perfect moment. and that team telegraphed home eclipse splendid. in principe, the day was not just cloudy, but started with a gigantic rainstorm. local dignitaries watched while astronomers waited, hoping for a break in the clouds. in fact, the rain ends a couple of hours before the eclipse, but clouds remained. it begins five seconds after 2:13 p.m. local time with

astronomers carrying out this machine-like photographing progress without knowing whether the clouds had cleared enough. eddington describes being so focused on the photography that he wasn't able to watch the actual event. he says there is a marvelous spectacle above, and as the photographs afterwards revealed, a wonderful prominence-flame is poised 100,000 miles above the surface of the sun. we are conscious only of the weird half-light of the landscape and the hush of nature, broken by the calls of the observers and the beat of the metronome ticking out 302 seconds of totality. 16 last photographic plates sat covered in a box holding the secrets of the stars until they could be scrutinized. and indeed, great efforts would be required before they were turned into scientific data. but eddington telegraphs home to dyson back in london, through cloud, hopeful. now in africa, eddington has to actually develop the photograph

plates in place. it turns out that most of them are cloudy, and only 6 of the 16 showed the stars they needed. as one of the original plates. the question was were those six plates i enough? eddington spends each day hunched over the photographs with a special tool called a micrometer making these fine measurements. the fact he was looking for was large by astronomers standards, but still tiny by any consideration. and then the measurements had to be reduced. that is mathematically analyzed to account for interference, eliminate optical effects and so forth before they became real data. eddington was legendary for how fast he could calculate things, in an enormous amount of time. and in the end he actually writes home to his mother, i got the one good plate that i measured gave a result agreeing with einstein, and i think that i have got a little confirmation from a second plate. so at some point in the first

week of june of 1919, eddington put down the pen he had been using for his calculations. perhaps he rested his head in his hands. this is three years after he received the first letter, a year after he had been freed from the conscription tribunal, eddington finally had his answer, that i knew that einstein's theory had stood the test and the new outlook of scientific thought must prevail. and he later calls this the greatest moment in his life. but despite that sol lemonty, eddington could not let that moment slip. he returned to cottingham, cottingham, you won't have to go home alone. this was just a matter of persuading himself, though. he wanted to know the answer. persuading the world would take more work. so once back in britain. eddington faced literal months of tedious measurement and further calculation. and the results from principe were calculated to be 1.71 arc seconds, comfortably close to

einstein's prediction of 1.75. and once the results were in hand, eddington and dyson did some test runs of presents the data with private and friendly audiences to see how it would go over. and in fact these went well. and dyson schedules a joint meeting of the royal society and the royal astronomical society to present the results publicly. eddington sends word of the results to their mutual friends in the netherlands. he still can't communicate directly with einstein. and the dutch friends telegraph einstein with the news. and einstein is delighted. einstein shows this telegram with the results to anyone who walks into his apartment for the next couple of months, even when he was bed ridden. and the various versions of the story are very entertaining. i like this one. one of his students who einstein shows the telegram too. and the student says full of enthusiasm, i explained how wonderful. this is almost the value you calculated. quite unperturbed he remarked.

i knew the thooer was correct. did you doubt it? no, of course not. but what would you have said if there was no confirmation like this? i would have to pity our dear god. the theory is correct all the same. in his private correspondence, he is a little more humble and a little more grateful about the test of his theory. this is in writing to one of his mentors, max blanc. how deeply and how heartily pleased i was of the news contained in lorentz's telegram. thus the intimate union between the beautiful, the true and the real has once again proved operative. you have already said many times you personally never doubted the result, but it is beneficial, nonetheless, if this fact is indubablely established for others as well. the presentation back in london was held at the royal society. one of the people present at the presentation of the results was the mathematician and philosopher alfred northead who describes it in this way.

a whole atmosphere of tense interest was exactly like that of a greek drama there was dramatic quality in the very staging, the traditional ceremonial and in the background the picture of newton to remind us that the greatest of scientific generalizations was now after more than two centuries to receive its first modification. nor was the penalty interest wanting. a great adventure in thought had at lent come safe to shore. he faced the podium and announced after a careful study of the plate there's can be no doubt that they confirm einstein's prediction, a very definite result has been obtained that light is reflected in accordance with einstein's law of gravitation. the teams including eddington described the expeditions and explained their data. and jj thompson, who was not a fan of einstein announced this is the most important result in connection with the theory of gravitation since newton's day, and it is fitting that it should be announced at a meeting of the

society so closely connected with him. if it is sustained that einstein's reasoning holds good and survived two very severe tests in connection with the perihelion of mercury and the present eclipse, then it is the result of one of the highest achievements in human thought. relevant is questioned. alternative presentations were presented. one person rose and pointed to newton's portrait, literally hanging over eddington's head demanding that they move very carefully in modifying the theory of that great man. now the next day, the times of london presented the greatest scientific headline in history. revolution in science. and in fact this actually shares the page with a reminder of the upcoming cash of the first armistice day observance. and the follow-up article is titled einstein versus newton, putting it in exactly the terms eddington had hoped for. remember, this is the first time almost anyone in britain had heard of einstein, and he was

presented exactly as eddington wanted him, as this peaceful genius who repudiated all of the war-time stereotypes. he was one of the signatories to the protest against the german manifesto of men of science who declared themselves in favor of germany's part in the war. very soon "the new york times" picked up on these articles and blared lights all askew in the heavens. and we know this quite clearly, this is only the second time einstein had ever been mentioned in "the new york times." he comes out of nowhere to the front page. and then eddington begins this tireless tour to excite even further interest in the results. he gives public lectures and introduce. he writes magazine articles, all celebrating the scientific revolution made possible between recent combatants, everyone wanted to talk about einstein. and indeed, it finally became possible for eddington and einstein to communicate directly. eddington writes to einstein,

all england has been talking about your theory. it is the best possible thing that could have happened to scientific relation between england and germany. i do not anticipate official progress or the a reunion, but there is a big advance toward a more reasonable frame of mind. the solidarity of german and british science, even in time of war. but it wasn't just fortune. it was that eddington and einstein worked hard to portray this scientific event as a repair from the terrible years of the war. einstein himself praises, saying this is the wonderful tradition in english science that they should devote their time and energy to a theory produced by an enemy during the war. and thus this is the moment einstein becomes famous literally around the world the

relevant circuits, unending press attention, hounded for autographs everywhere he goes, mail piles up at his home literally by the basketful. everybody wanted to know more about this mysterious sage that had changed the universe. einstein found it ridiculous. by the application of relevant to the taste of readers, today in germany i am called a german man of science, and in england i am represented as a swiss jew. if i am come to be represented as a bete noire then the descriptions will be reversed and i shall become a swiss jew for the germans and a german scientist for the british. drew the attention of political rights who attacked him as a jewish internationalist. and this dispersed him to even more political work, essentially with zionism and this leads to him fleeing the country under the nazis and coming to the u.s. as a refugee. but his sudden ascension of

celebrity by replacing newton's centuries of dominance was squarely due to the timing and context of the war. as described by ernst rutherford, one of the greatest british scientists of all time, the war had just ended. the complacency of victorian and edward times had been shattered. and suddenly an astronomical prediction by a german scientist had been confirmed by expeditions by british astronomers. an astronomical discovery transcending worldly strife struck a responsive chord. so einstein becomes a new scientific saint. but our image of einstein as an aloof genius comes out of these devastating bloody years of war. and it's only in contrast to those horrors that einstein's triumph was so striking, a victory for pure thought, scientific beauty and world peace at a time when civilization itself seemed to be in peril. 10 the horrors of the war and pacifists like einstein's

reaction to them forged these intricate fragile networks that make relevant what it was. without this network caused by the politics of the war, the relevant revolution would have never occurred. the theory didn't have many applications. and without the war, relevant would have just been one more scientific theory, true, but obscure. without the war, einstein would be just one more name for bored school children to memorize. but instead, his name is now an idea, an icon, a personification of everything we want science to be. and the key to that was not einstein's lone genius, it was einstein and his friends. thank you very much. this has been a real pleasure. you can reach out to me. we're taking questions now, but feel free to email me or go to my podcast website for further discussion. >> spectacular. matt, thank you so much. i know i was laughing out loud at some of the comments.

and so i fully anticipate that those across the nation and from around the world were doing the same. so thank you, all, again, for joining us. if you are joining us in zoom, do please add your questions. and there are some really good ones coming in in that q&a section. if you are joining us either on the linda hall library facebook page or the national world war i museum and memorials facebook page, please feel free to add your questions into the chat. we have educators from both organizations who are there and moderating. the first question actually came from tims a. quinn and he asked the question how did it come that people thought that einstein had no talent in mathematics? >> so this is actually einstein

being self-deprecating. you can find a quote of him saying he wasn't very good at math. in fact, einstein does find in mathematics in school. skipping math class wasn't because he was bad at math, but just he hated going to classes. he felt he had better things to do. when he describes himself as being not a good mathematician, he is comparing himself to literally the greatest mathematicians in the world at the time. so when he is explaining why he has to go talk to marcel grossman and so on, he is explaining he says i don't understand this mathematics. i need your help. so he is actually very good at math. it's just in comparison to his friends. >> from tom winter, npr science last friday had a report of a science magazine that has a historical story about a barber who brings to einstein the idea that gravitation could affect light and curve it. is that story true? i do love that we have the

opportunity to balance out and kind of be a sounding board for the truth of media today too. science, history, media, is all coming in one place. >> that is great. i did not hear that episode. so i don't know the specific reference. but that said, there's sort of a cottage industry of finding earlier versions of einstein's prediction in other scientific literature. in fact, it was the case that way back in the 18th century, there were people who proposed that newton's theory could affect light. and it turns out if you accept that idea, then in fact light should bend. so there are a handful of people who make a similar prediction to just a general idea that gravity should bend light before einstein. i should say, though, there is an important sort of warning i want to put here is that there is a group of far-right anti-semitic critics of einstein in the 1920s and '30s who used

this claim to make the case that einstein plagiarized relevant. that's not true at all, and that's just an anti-semitic attack against einstein. >> from benjamin davis, he wanted to know what was the results of the solar eclipse study that was done in brazil? >> ah, that's a really good question. and in fact there is a sense in which it is grievously unfair i passed over that for time purposes. the story in brazil is actually quite interesting. they have two telescope there's, unlike the one eddington has in africa. and the big telescope, like the really good one has a technical problem at the last second, sort of during the eclipse. so it produces photographs that at first glance are really bad. and everybody -- and by first glance, the scientists immediately look at them and say these are not good results. one of the things you can do with this kind of problem is you can sort of subtract the problem

and figure out what the results would have been if the problem hadn't been there. this is a thing astronomers are good at doing. so if you do that, then you get a result quite close to einstein's prediction. and then the little telescope that they brought as a backup at the last second actually captures the absolute best pictures for the entire eclipse, and those are smack-on with einstein's prediction. sow it's actually a wonderfully epic tale of near disaster on so many different fronts. >> i feel like in your area of expertise, the history of science, it's probably just full of these near disastrous moments. one of our participants wants to know was einstein himself qualified to carry out this type of test? >> this is a really good question. and the answer is a firm no. so this is an important distinction that sometimes we

lose when we're sort of outside science. einstein is a theorist, right. he is really good at equations and ideas and principles and figuring out what's going on and making predictions. but he is not very good at actually going and doing the observation, doing the test itself. so that's a completely different skill set. and einstein realizes this immediately. and this is one of the things he realizes he has to do as soon as he has this prediction is find someone qualified to do the test. and actually, so then he has to sort of acolyte who is really interested relativity. einstein is tearing his hair out trying to find stwoun do the test but in the end froinlich was able to go do it. >> a very specific question coming to us from guy rader.

you spoke about a mirror that tracked the stars' movement via a clockwork mechanism during the eclipse expeditions. could you share more about the relationship between astronomers, fist cysts and clock makers? is that a strong diagram? >> that's a great question. the quick answer is it's a weak ven diagram. astronomers and physicists really rely on clock makers really well until the 20th century. clock makers are the people who can make really precise instruments and particularly sort of robust instruments that can survive, say, being carried from england to brazil. so what typically happens, and this is a good example of that, is astronomers and physicists have advanced degrees, but along the lines of what we were just talking about, don't necessarily have the hands-on skills to operate the machinery. so then there are poorly paid

employees, say, of the royal observatory who actually have to operate the equipment in a way that the people with the fancy degrees can't. now eddington is an interesting intersection of that ven diagram, because he is trained as a physicist, as an astronomer, and then his first job out of college is as an assistant at the royal observatory. so he does learn how to operate the machines in a way that, say, frank dyson or einstein never get to. >> from robinson yost, after the 1919 eclipse expedition, what were the divisions in the international physics community with respect to accepting einstein's general relativity versus continuing skepticism? >> this is a really interesting question, in sense because i feel like there is a real tension here. so einstein's theory of relativity is generally accepted

everywhere. there are holdouts, but for the most part everyone who looks at the data, at the actual photographs agree there's is a deflection of light and that it matches einstein's prediction. and then some people say well, maybe there is an alternative explanation that's not such a weird theory. so there is some of that going on. but then one of the interesting things that happens is astronomers continue to test einstein's theory, even though it has generally accepted already. so, for instance, american astronomers go and test this again in the 1920s at a much better precision than eddington is able to do. but what i find interesting is they do the test even though they kind of know what the answer is going to be. no one expects einstein is going to be overthrown at this point. and throughout the 20th century, and continuing to today we continue to test einstein's theory, even though no one doubts it. it is amazing. we spend billions of dollars on scientific projects to test on

relativity, even though no one thinks we're going get an answer that it's wrong. i don't know why the scientific community is quite so obsessed with trying to test relativity, but they really are. >> we have a lot of really good questions. i want to be sure to honor everyone's time. i'm going to ask one more. but before i do that, would you be willing to stay on a little bit long sorry that we could explore some more of these, because i personally would like to hear some of the answer. >> sure, i'd be delighted to. >> awesome. so the last official question comes to us from stacey quartery. i know your next book is a history of scientific predictions of the end of the world. i don't cow say a little bit more about this new project of yours? it sounds very exciting. i certainly could. i wish i knew more about it. it is a new project, right. so the question that kind of struck me about this is that

once upon a time, predictions about the end of the world were something that you asked prophets and priests about, right. this is a religious kind of prediction. the book of revelation and so on. but nowadays, we ask scientists about apocalypses instead. and they have a lot of them described to us. so i'm interested in how that shift came to be, that is how do scientists take on the duty of having to predict the end of the world. and at the moment, i'm deep into one particular kind of prediction, scientific prediction of the end of the world, and that's the idea that an asteroid might hit the earth and destroy it all, the same way it destroyed the dinosaurs. what i personally find interesting about this, when i was a kid, that was a ridiculous idea. the idea that we -- it was literally laughed out of scientific conferences. but nowadays we have an office

of planetary defense. so how did that come to be? how did we get such a change in the way we think about a is effect problem? drink, matthew stanley, on behalf of the national memorial museum and the linda hall library with whom we've been so pleased to partner on this and many lectures, thank you so very much. if you are interested in the future or the demise of our future as dr. stanley was just talking about, do pay attention to the website that you see right there. start listening to his podcasts, what the f.com. and if you like history and science, take a look. i believe we've got it on sale on our website, the world war.org. if you haven't picked up the book yet, and learn more by reading the book, einstein's war, of course. always support your local libraries. that's another great way to do

it. if you want to stay on, please do. and for those of you who need to leave, thank you so much for your time. it is one of your most valuable commodities. we truly appreciate learning with you. all right. matt, there are so many great questions that are located here. >> is there one you wanted to do? >> no, go for it. if you got one, go for it. >> charles keller asks a very interesting question about einstein's relationship to other socialists, and particularly h.g. wells. and it was said that wells helped einstein escape germany. i don't know specifically if wells was involved in that or not. einstein was actually traveling abroad when the nazis come to power, and they sack his home literally. so einstein never goes back. i think wells does help einstein get a safer berth in england for a bit.

and then einstein moves around and ends up in new jersey, of all places. he and -- so it's quite extraordinary how political networks like international socialism helps get people out of germany and the axis of powers generally. and einstein spends the first few years of his time in the united states trying to do the same kind of thing. other people helped him get out of germany. he helps other people get out. so he spends all of his time writing letters of recommendation and making phone calls, trying to get as many people of jewish heritage and left-wing politics and such out from underneath the nazis as they can. and then i should say all those refugees that come to the united states sort of on einstein's watch, those are the people that build the atomic bomb. it's an amazing kind of thing that the persecution of the nazis gives rise to what eventually becomes -- makes america win the war and become a

superpower. it's a wonderful lesson in why that's not a good thing to do. >> that also comes a little bit full circle if folks in the audience are unaware, h.g. wells is the one that kind of coins that term, "the war to end all wars". you can find out more on our youtube channel. charles keller is associated with the h. guilty. wells is society and a lecture that he has done there. so, again, this intersection of history and literature and science, it's a wonderful space to be. >> that's great. >> nancy vogt, i hope i said your louisiana name right, what happened to the astronomers who went to russia? >> this is interesting. so they are arrested as spies. and there is a sense in which i can't blame the russians for this, because they set up their equipment right over the russian naval base at sebastopol.

which made sense when there wasn't going on because you could use the railroad tracks. but once the war begins, you're obviously spies. so they're arrested. whether or not they're tortured is unclear. they're actually released in a prisoner of war trade relatively early in the war. they're actually the first german prisoners to come back. but their equipment stays in russia for almost 100 years afterwards. it actually doesn't come back until after the collapse of the soviet union. so the germans couldn't have redone the test even if they wanted to. >> all right. >> edison -- edison is a very specific question on how one draws the diagram of light deflection. this is actually a pretty important question. another example of me hand-waving for presentation purposes. edison points out that it's actually more proper to draw the bend in the light after the

light beam goes past the edge of the sun rather than before, which is sort of the diagram i have. so edison, you're actually completely right. that is more technically correct. i find people get confused by that because they're not used to thinking about image formation in that way. that is they're not used to thinking about a light rain's foreign images. it gets confusing. but you're quite right, and i'm happy to be corrected on that. well, let's see here. who else do we have? >> i'll say this one. this is fabulous matt, and thinking about the anti-german and anti-semitic rhetoric, could you speak more about the anxieties of scientists during this time, that they would have to capitulate to popular discourse? wait, scientists have to capitulate to scientific discourse? do you notice any similarities with the pandemic today, the public and their relationship to science?

fabulous question, nuella, and again i hope i am saying your name correctly. that is a terrific question. i'm glad you brought this up. we have -- i put some of these quotes up here, these really awful things that say english scientists say about german scientists and german scientists say about french scientists. and one way to read those awful statements is that the scientifics didn't really believe that, but they felt the need to say things like that because they were under public pressure. and that's a real possibility. we do have private letters of many of these astronomers and physicists as well. so we may have some better sense of what is actually going on in their heads. and my sense of it, at least in the british case, which i know better than the german or french cases is that they actually felt this quite strongly. that is they were not feeling like they needed to change what they had to say in terms of

political or sort of social pressure, but rather, they felt very strongly these were real things. and they, for instance, they lay plans for after the war of setting up new international scientific organizations where they wouldn't have to deal with the germans and the austrians would be forbidden from joining and things like this. dyson i think is a particularly interesting case in that he doesn't actually make anti-german political statements during the year, but his personal condolence shows he was actually quite anti-german. he is upset that his son isn't old enough to go fight. he really hopes that the germans lose the war and are punished for it terribly. but then he goes along with eddington on this interesting plan, which could have been a total disaster along the way. so it's very interesting to see how scientifics navigate the

sort of treacherous political and social waters while also trying to kind of hold to what they see is the proper way the do science. in terms of the comparison to the modern day, and particularly the struggles that scientifics have had talking to sort of the general public during the pandemic, i think one of the lessons we should take away from the einstein and eddington story is that that was an era when it's not so much that people trusted the science more, although i think that's probably true, but rather that scientists were more concerned with talking to the public and making clear -- making legible their ideas in a way people could understand. eddington really takes years off from doing his technical work in astrophysics to help people understand relativity better. and that's a set of skills that

i think not many scientifics today have. and the reason for that is we don't train scientifics in those skills. we train people to publish papers and get tenure. we don't teach them how to communicate well. and i think one of the important lessons of the last year and a half, it would be really nice if we took some time out from training our scientifics in teaching them how to actually teach, how to talk to nonsifb nonscientists out there. >> i already know one of the sound bites that's going to be coming from the talk right here. there are go more questions. the first is about a specific date, if you might know it off the top. >> oh, let me -- let me google that. >> the nice thing is google exists for things along that line. while you are googling that. >> whole wikipedia, august 21st, 1914. >> all right. >> that's your answer.

and then beth walsh brings us back to questions about media and reporting. >> i should say the media, the story of the 1919 eclipse as a media event is a wonderful way to think about. and there is a sense in which the sort of first big media event of the post war period, i did some radio and international telegraph lines. so everybody is stunned at how quickly the news spread around the world. nobody more than einstein. he doesn't -- he hears about this when reporters show up at his door. and he is like why do you people care about what i have to say at all? much less following him around everywhere asking him questions. in terms of the accuracy of the reporting, this is kind of interesting. so there is the original story

in "the times" which in an important sense is sort of planted by dyson and eddington. they recruit a reporter to come to the announcement of the results. so that's pretty accurate. they're not talking to eddington or dyson, much less einstein. so inaccuracies begin to creep in. sort of famously, i don't know if i'm still sharing my screen here, but i'll go back to "the times" article. so "lights all askew in the heavens." men of science more or less agog over results of eclipse observations. in the article they say no more than 12 people could understand it. that's totally fabricated by the times. that's not true at all. lots of people understood relativity by this point. but interestingly, you'll

actually still hear that quip sometimes. or some variation of it, even today. really only four people understand einstein's theory. four people in the building i'm in understand einstein's theory. that's not a thing at all. and "the times" article gets picked up by other newspapers. you can kind of track inaccuracies creeping in with time. and some of the accuracies include things like einstein's nationality, which i think is a particularly interesting one, that people begin to forget. the fact that he is jewish drops off the map fairly quickly as well. and the two expeditions that is one to africa and one to brazil get conflated quite quickly. and the actual numerical predicts disappear essentially, almost instantly. so goodness only knows what would have happened if the blogosphere had existed. >> dr. matthew stanley, thank

you so very much. it has been a true delight to be in conversation with you this evening. and it is a delight at the national world war i museum and memorial. stand in that space of trying to keep inaccuracies away from both history and science. and to be bringing conversations like this to you and your homes right now if you're watching live and in the future. you have enjoyed this and you want to share it, you can certainly find it on our youtube page. the easiest way to get there is go the world war.org. you can share from there later on. if you want to find out more, of course you should pick up the book. or be following along with dr. stanley at any