Commemorative plaque design

The design of the commemorative plaque has been finalised, and it is being fabricated by Premier Engraving. The plaque will be installed at the Sundy plantation, and unveiled at a ceremony on 29 May 2009: the 90th anniversary of the solar eclipse.

Eddington had set off by now...

In the days of steamships and postwar troop transportation, it took a long time to sail to Africa. Eddington had to set off on the 8th of March 1919. Well, he intended to arrive in time to take some pre-eclipse exposures of the Hyades star cluster while it was still visible at night, so he left earlier than he needed to. In the end, it was lucky because he spent a month waiting for onward transportation from Madeira. But in the mean time, at least he enjoyed the cakes on board - which were not subject to rationing and filled with raisins to "pre-war levels". And the bananas on Madeira. Sir Arthur Eddington seems to have some sort of banana adict.

Background reading

I just spent a fantastic few hours at the Einstein Papers Project on CalTech campus. Einstein bequeathed all his papers to Jerusalem University, but a copy of them all is stored at CalTech, where they are gradually being translated (most are in German) and published. The archive includes correspondence between Einstein and Eddington, discussing the expedition and later works, as well as the fiasco over the Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal, which was planned to be awarded to Einstein in 1920, but wasn't. Wow, scientific progress in those days was slow, being conducted by transatlantic airmail... and maybe more thoughtful than astro-ph... The archive also includes letters Eddington wrote to his mother during his (long) journey to Principe and from the island. More on those to follow.

Web page goes live!

This first report is posted in a jubilant mood, coincidentally from an international conference on gravitational lensing near Frankfurt. Many of Europe's lensers are gathered to review and coordinate plans for a year's research. And this anniversary year should be very exciting: with the opening of two brand new telescopes designed specifically to measure gravitational lensing, and the planning of a satellite to do even better from orbit. Lensing has come a long way in the 90 years since its first observation. Eddington would have been pleasantly surprised!