Page 61 - DK Life Stories Albert Einstein by AELC
P. 61

In spite of all these new

         responsibilities, Albert still         DID YOU KNOW?
         focused most of his energy

         on his latest theories. One              Albert wrote a letter
                                                 protesting World War I,
         of his most promising was                but only three other

         an addition to his theory                 scientists signed it.
         of general relativity. He had

         been attempting to calculate the
         degree to which light from a star will

         be bent by the gravitational force of  the sun.
         This would become known as “gravitational

         lensing.” Put simply, if light from a distant
         source is coming toward you and there is a

         large object between you and the light, the
         gravitational field from that mass will change

         the course of that light (often referred to as
         “bending” the light).

             There had already been a theory for
         centuries about this phenomenon, but Albert

         calculated that the effect was greater than
         had long been thought. He presented this idea

         in a book published in early 1917 called On the
         Special and the General Theory of  Relativity, Generally


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