Relativity and gravitation . central materiaP is probably about 2. This com-puted equatorial excess is one-twelfth of the amountnecessary to cause the observed advance, and shouldtherefore cause an advance of the perihelion ofabout per century, reducing the difference be-tween the observed advance and that caused bygravitation to According to Einstein the ad-vance due to relativity should be, as we saw, 43,a discrepancy of per century, or 10 per has remarked that any discrepancy such as10 would be fatal to a theory such as Einsteins,which contains no arbitrary const
Relativity and gravitation . central materiaP is probably about 2. This com-puted equatorial excess is one-twelfth of the amountnecessary to cause the observed advance, and shouldtherefore cause an advance of the perihelion ofabout per century, reducing the difference be-tween the observed advance and that caused bygravitation to According to Einstein the ad-vance due to relativity should be, as we saw, 43,a discrepancy of per century, or 10 per has remarked that any discrepancy such as10 would be fatal to a theory such as Einsteins,which contains no arbitrary constituent capable ofadjustment to suit empirical facts.^* It must bepointed out here however, that so far as known, thissmall correction to the motion of Mercurys peri-helion has not previously been suggested, so thatthere has been no opportunity hitherto for Its criti-cism by others. It was due largely to the success with Mercurythat it was decided to put the relativity theory toanother test. According to the Newtonian theory,. One of the eclipse photographs The arrows pointing to the star-images have been in-serted by hand; and the star-images themselves have hadto be materially strengthened in order to make them showin the engraving at all. Photograph submitted by Dr. Alexander McAdic, Harvard University,by courtesy of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. THE PHYSICAL SIDE OF RELATIVITY 303 as stated by Newton himself, corpuscles as well asplanets have mass, and must therefore be attractedby the sun. According to Einstein, owing to theirhigh velocity, this attraction must be twice as greatas it would be according to the theory of the ray of light proceeding from a star were topass nearly tangent to the suns limb it should bedeflected according to Newton. According tothe theory of relativity it should be deflected of course cannot usually be observed near thesun. It is therefore necessary to take advantage ofa total solar eclipse, when the sun is comp
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