Astronomical Fieldwork and the Spaces of Relativity: The Historical Geographies of the 1919 British Eclipse Expeditions to Príncipe and Brazil

Abstract

abstract:This paper looks at the British eclipse expeditions to Brazil and Príncipe of May 1919, which were undertaken to find proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity by measuring the deflection of starlight at a solar eclipse. Much has been written on the mathematical implications of the results of these eclipse expeditions and the motives of the astronomers involved, but less attention has been paid to the expeditions themselves. In analyzing the specific geographies of these expeditions, this paper will demonstrate that they were shaped by a multitude of factors, including networks of commerce and political relations in a world of growing postwar international cooperation and colonial legacies, while also affirming the importance of the expedition as a tool of research for astrophysical and astronomical science at this time. Analyzing the roles of colonial administrators and unnamed assistants that took part in the expedition process along with the spaces within which they worked provides a critical geographical view of these expeditions and their significance as an episode of early twentieth-century science.