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Einstein's Jury: The Race to Test Relativity

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I am a staff member at the UCO/Lick Observatory, one of the major venues where the action takes place in this book. Astronomers at Lick were one of two major groups who actually verified beyond scientific doubt the validity of Einstein's general theory of relativity, according to this absorbing tale told with verve by Crelinsten. You would think that the facts related here would be well known to me and my colleagues, but such is not the case. Most of us had been educated to believe that the decisive test of GR was the light-bending measurement by Eddington at the 1919 eclipse. That test was very important but, according to Crelinsten, did not conclusively prove the theory to the satisfaction of the scientific community. It was later work, mostly at Lick and at Mt. Wilson, that did this. I was delighted to learn that my predecessors at Lick were so important in the development of modern cosmology and even more please to read the story so delightfully told by Crelinsten.

I'm astounded by the research conducted by Jeffrey Crelinsten in order to write this book. It's absolutely amazing that such information about Einstein had existed but either had never been made public before, or had not been organized, analyzed and coherently told as a fascinating, historically accurate story. Ironically, the author's ability to find facts and relate them to one another proves him to be a master of relativity, himself! The book is more than interesting: it is important.

Most people believe, as I did, that Einstein's Theory of General Relativity was vindicated by Sir Arthur Eddington's confirmation that the path of distant starlight bends as it goes though the Sun's gravitational field - this being observed during the eclipse of 1919. Well, as this excellent tome most clearly describes, nothing could be further from the truth. It took closer to two decades for Einstein's theory to be finally accepted worldwide. The author goes through detail after painstaking detail in describing the efforts by astronomers, mainly in the USA, to confirm (or refute) Eddington's results, as well as other predictions of the theory, and thus support (or demolish) Einstein's theory. The text is very clear and the prose very engaging. Despite its strong scientific content, this book does read like a thriller. It must be admitted, however, that the author pulls no punches regarding the nature of the scientific problems being investigated, the problems encountered, the scientific debates, etc. Consequently, I would expect that readers who would likely enjoy this book the most would be those with a background in physical science as well as the most serious science and astronomy buffs.

Given the number of books about Albert Einstein, it's amazing this story has not been told--until now. "Einstein's Jury" documents the physicist's twenty-five year struggle to win acceptance for relativity, a theory that most established scientists considered bizarre, metaphysical and incomprehensible. "Einstein's Jury" is a cliff-hanger, with author Jeffrey Crelinsten calling the play by play as we follow Einstein toehold by toehold, struggling to climb the vertical wall leading to scientific acceptance. Crelinsten holds us in suspense. The scientific debate was nasty, even before the First World War split the jury further by pouring national prejudices on the flames. Acceptance was not a foregone conclusion: Einstein's jury debated for decades. To borrow a phrase from Wellington after the battle of Waterloo, the verdict was "a damned close-run thing." Crelinsten marshals his pro- and anti-Einstein forces well, using previously unpublished papers and letters to cover the knock-downs, slight advances, insults, reverses and ultimate success."

Robert Fripp, author of
Let There Be Life: A Scientific and Poetic Retelling of the Genesis Creation Story (Essays about our cosmic and organic origins)

This is a fascinating review of various observational attempts to validate Einstein's theory of relativity. It complements earlier detailed accounts by emphasizing the important and decisive role contributed by US astronomers, both in measuring the deflection of starlight at the time of an eclipse (a difficult observation) and the so-called gravitational redshift which can be detected in the solar spectrum and also that of compact white dwarfs. Most earlier texts have focused on the pioneering efforts of Sir Arthur Eddington who promoted the importance of Einstein's theory and secured a convincing measure of the deflection of starlight at the 1919 eclipse. (Although some have subsequently questioned the validity of Eddington's results, recent scholarly articles support the original claim.) This book includes Eddington's story but adds much more by discussing, in detail, the remarkable persistence of US observers at the Lick and Mt Wilson observatories, as well as the unfortunate mishaps of the German astronomer, Finlay-Freundlich. Crelinsten writes well and gives us a gripping tale of the trials and tribulations of the various observers. For the first time (for me at least) he documents the remarkable reluctance in some quarters within the US scientific community to accept Einstein's theory at all! This is a marvelous story and you won't need to understand the technical details of relativity to follow the excitement as it unfolds during the First World War and afterwards.

Richard Ellis, Professor of Astronomy, Caltech