The Displacement of Solar Lines

Abstract

THE agreement of the observed advance of Mercury's perihelion and of the eclipse results of the British expeditions of 1919 with the deductions from the Einstein law of gravitation gives an increased importance to observations on the displacement of absorption lines in the solar spectrum relative to terrestrial sources, as the evidence on this deduction from the Einstein theory is at present contradictory. Particular interest, moreover, attaches to such observations, inasmuch as the mathematical physicists are not in agreement as to the validity of this deduction, and solar observations must eventually furnish the criterion.