Joint Eclipse meeting
von H.F. Newall
Joint Eclipse meeting
[Diskussionsbeitrag]
Prof. H.F. Newall
In: Joint eclipse meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical Society. – In: Observatory. 42. 1919, S. 389-397; S. 395-396.
S. 396: „I do not yet feel that I can give up my freedom of mind in favour of another interpretation of the effects obtained. If Einstein had not existed, or had not predicted a deflection, we might have had a similar experiment made to test the presence of an extended atmosphere round the Sun, and we could have argued from the result back to the hypothesis.
Think for one moment of the fine prominence that was seen on the day of the eclipse. It was followed by Evershed for a rotation and a half. Matter was expelled outwards in the course of the movement, as we know from the sequence of photographs secured with the spectro-heliograph at Cambridge on the day of the eclipse. And yet this matter at different high levels goes round the Sun, not with gravitational velocities, but with the same velocities as hold at the lower level of the spots. It is, I know, a cheap criticism to make a qualitative suggestion in opposition to a quantitative result, but I feel that I want to keep an open mind for the existence of matter in a field where gravitational and electric forces are acting simultaneously in unknown relation, under conditions which admit to the existence of an extended corona. It does not carry much the deflection in terms of refractive index, a medium having a density 1/200 or 1/40 of that of the terrestrial atmosphere would be needed. For we have to do with a possible effective temperature, almost certainly in part controlled by electric as well as gravitational conditions existing in it. And who can say what its refractive properties may be? I prefer to keep an open mind about interpretation.“
- 27. Januar 2013
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