Eddington's eclipse and Einstein's celebrity

Dec 31, 2018 26 min

About this episode

Philip Ball's tale is of a solar eclipse 100 years ago observed by Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer who travelled to the remote island of Principe off the coast of West Africa and saw the stars shift in the heavens. His observations supplied the crucial proof of a theory that transformed our notions of the cosmos and turned a German physicist named Albert Einstein into an international celebrity. But this is also a tale of how a Quaker tried to use science to unite countries. The reparations imposed on Germany after the war extended into science too as many in Great Britain and other Allied nations felt that German science should be ostracised from the international community. As a Quaker, Eddington wanted just the opposite: to see peaceful cooperation restored among nations.Picture: Image of the 1919 Solar eclipse taken by Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), Credit: Science Photo LibraryProducer: Erika Wright

Listen to this episode in English to learn English

Podcast episodes are one of the highest-density ways to absorb English at native pace. Eddington's eclipse and Einstein's celebrity from Discovery gives you natural dialogue, unscripted speech, and vocabulary that actually appears in real conversations.

In the Clue app, every word in the transcript is tappable. Tap an unknown word, see the translation in your language instantly, and keep listening without breaking flow.

Episodes to Learn English

More podcasts in English