On the occasion of the centenary of the total solar eclipse in which was verified one of the predictions of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity for the first time, the researcher of the Galician Institute for High Energy Physics (IGFAE) researcher and USC professor José Edelstein will give a public talk next Wednesday, May 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the Centro ABANCA Obra Social (Plaza de Cervantes) in Santiago de Compostela

On May 29, 1919, a total solar eclipse would be visible from Brazil and Africa as predicted by Isaac Newton’s equations. The physics of that time was dominated by his law of Universal Gravitation, but it was in disagreement with the General Theory of Relativity of Albert Einstein, which proposed that light deflects its trajectory the double amount when passing near a very massive body due to the curvature of space. In the absence of experimental evidence, the British astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington led an experiment: use the 1919 eclipse to photograph the stars that were around the solar disk before and during the event and thus check whether deflection of light occurred when passing close to the Sun.

Thanks to the darkening of the sky during the whole eclipse, the two English teams involved in the scientific expedition were able to verify in the photographic plates months later that the position of some of the stars had been altered. Its light, instead of traveling along a straight line, bended slightly as it passed close to the gravitational field of the Sun. In this talk, IGFAE researcher and USC professor José Edelstein will tell the story of how Newton was definitively eclipsed by Einstein, who became the worldwide celebrity that lasts just a century later.

• Venue: ABANCA Obra Social Center (Plaza de Cervantes) of Santiago de Compostela
• Day: May 29, 2019
• Time: 7:30 p.m.
• Free entrance, until seating is completed
• Language of the talk: Spanish