difference of scale of the telescope as used in England and at the eclipse; for the Sobral plates this scale-difference was eliminated by the method of reduction, with the consequence that the results depended on the measurement of a much smaller relative displacement.
There remained a set of seven plates taken at Sobral with the 4-inch lens; their measurement had been delayed by the necessity of modifying a micrometer to hold them, since they were of unusual size. From the first no one entertained any doubt that the final decision must rest with them, since the images were almost ideal, and they were on a larger scale than the other photographs. The use of this instrument must have presented considerable difficulties—the unwieldy length of the telescope, the slower speed of the lens necessitating longer exposures and more accurate driving of the clock-work, the larger scale rendering the focus more sensitive to disturbances—but the observers achieved success, and the perfection of the negatives surpassed anything that could have been hoped for.
These plates were now measured and they gave a final verdict definitely confirming Einstein's value of the deflection, in agreement with the results obtained at Principe.
It will be remembered that Einstein's theory predicts a deflection of 1″.74 at the edge of the sun[1], the amount falling off inversely as the distance from the sun's centre. The simple Newtonian deflection is half this, 0″.87. The final results (reduced to the edge of the sun) obtained at Sobral and Principe with their "probable accidental errors" were
| Sobral | 1″.98 ± 0″.12, |
| Principe | 1″.61 ± 0″.80. |
It is usual to allow a margin of safety of about twice the probable error on either side of the mean. The evidence of the Principe plates is thus just about sufficient to rule out the possibility of the "half-deflection," and the Sobral plates exclude it with practical certainty. The value of the material found at Principe cannot be put higher than about one-sixth of that at Sobral; but it certainly makes it less easy to bring criticism against this confirmation of Einstein's theory seeing that it was obtained
- ↑ The predicted deflection of light from infinity to infinity is just over 1″.745, from infinity to the earth it is just under.
