POINTS TO EINSTEIN

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 88, 13 April 1923, Page 6

POINTS TO EINSTEIN

From the Lick Observatory comes news that the star photographs taken during the solar eclipse, by means of cameras sst up at Wallal, confirm in an " absolutely phenomenal way" the prediction of the Einstein Theory. This news will perhaps cause no deep emotion in the heart of Albert Einstein, who has remained calm behind the fortification erected by his mathematical skill, apparently indifferent to the fierce battle that ha.3 beem raging without among a multitude of critics. His position has been singularly unassailable, because' he has from the first declared that there are only a very few men in the world capable, of understanding his theory in full; and they, like himself, have not succeeded in imparting their special knowledge to a wider circle. Einstein, unshakable by inexpert attack b, and unattacked by experts, has not for his own purposes required any such confirmation as that now reported. But, if Einstein remains unmoved, his supporters and antagonists will not be. The Wallal results are of the highest importance, because they place a most powerful weapon in the hauds of those who are defending the theory. Had no such test been possible and no such result obtained, Einstein's argument, with its tremendous mathematical difficulties, might have struggled almost interminably for general recognition. That struggle is now, unless there has been a great mistake somewhere, cut much shorter. Difficult or not, the theory will inevitably spread its influence, and its teachings, repugnant as. many people find them to-day, will become as familiar as the facts —once repugnant and heretical—that the earth is a globe and moves round the sun.