Einstein and Eddington: The Story of General Relativity

Today on Far Future Horizons in order to mark the centennial of the publication Einstein's Masterwork we proudly present the BBC docudrama “Einstein and Eddington” 


This is the story about Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity, his relationship with Arthur Stanley Eddington and the introduction of this theory to the world, against the backdrop of the Great War.

Path of total solar eclipse of  May 29 1919

During the 1920s and 30s Eddington gave innumerable lectures, interviews, and radio broadcasts on relativity (in addition to his textbook Mathematical Theory of Relativity), and later, quantum mechanics. Many of these were gathered into books, including The Nature of the Physical World and New Pathways in Science. His skillful use of literary allusions and humor helped make these famously difficult subjects quite accessible.

One of Eddington's photographs of the total solar eclipse of  May 29 1919 presented in his 1920 paper announcing its success, confirming Einstein's theory that light "bends"

To obtain various works by (and about) Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, which are very difficult to obtain elsewhere go here.

Einstein and Eddington: The Story of General Relativity is one movie you will want to add to your collection and is available on DVD from Amazon.com.

We also encourage our loyal patrons to purchase John Gribbin’s Einstein's Masterwork: 1915 and the General Theory of Relativity. 

Dr. Gribbin’s book is the most authoritative historical account of how Albert Einstein came up with General Relativity that I have read to date.

In 1915, Albert Einstein presented his masterwork to the Prussian Academy of Sciences - a theory of gravity, matter, space and time: the General Theory of Relativity. Einstein himself said it was 'the most valuable theory of my life', and 'of incomparable beauty'. It describes the evolution of the Universe, black holes, the behaviour of orbiting neutron stars, gravitational lensing, and why clocks run slower on the surface of the Earth than in space. It even suggests the possibility of time travel. And yet we think instead of 1905, the year of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity and his equation E=mc², as his annus mirabilis, even though the Special Theory is less far-reaching. Today the General Theory is overshadowed by these achievements, regarded as 'too difficult' for ordinary mortals to comprehend. In Einstein's Masterwork, John and Mary Gribbin put Einstein's astonishing breakthrough in the context of his life and work, and make it clear why his greatest year was indeed 1915.

Einstein and Eddington: The Story of General Relativity

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