Abstract
IN a letter published in NATURE of March 11 Prof. Eddington has shown that the statement made by me in an earlier letter to the effect that Einstein's law of gravitation seems to lead to a zero deflection for a material particle moving with the velocity of light is not in accord with the exact equation of the orbit contained in his report to the Physical Society, and suggests that my approximations were not sufficiently close to warrant my conclusion. The line element from which Prof. Eddington derives the equation of the orbit is expressed in co-ordinates which make the velocity of light different in different directions at any one point, whereas the one used by me requires that the velocity of light should be a function of position only, and not of direction. In terms of my co ordinates the equation of the orbit of a particle moving with the velocity of light is which leads to the same deflection for a material particle moving with the velocity of light as for a light-ray. Hence it is clear that my previous corclusion was based on an insufficiently close approximation, and therefore erroneous.
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PAGE, L. Gravitational Deflection of High-speed Particles. Nature 105, 233 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105233a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105233a0
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