A Revolution in Science: the Eclipse Expeditions of 1919

We review the physics at the end of the nineteenth century and summarize the process of the establishment of Special Relativity by Albert Einstein in brief. Following in the giant's footsteps, we outline the scientific method which helps to do research. We give some examples in illustration of this method. We discuss the origin of quantum physics and string theory in its early years of development. The discoveries of the neutrino and the correct model of solar system are also...

A detailed re-examination of the seminal paper on special relativity, taking into account recent work on the physical interpretation of the space-time Lorentz transformation as well as the modern understanding of classical elecromagnetism as a certain limit of the fundamental underlying theory --quantum electrodynamics-- is presented. Many errors both of physical principle and of a mathematical nature are uncovered. The `relativity of simultaneity' and `length contraction' ef...

In his Autobiographical Notes, Einstein mentioned that on his road to the final theory of general relativity it was a major difficulty to accustom himself to the idea that coordinates need not possess an immediate physical meaning in terms of lengths and times. This appears strange: that coordinates are conventional markers of events seems an obvious fact, already familiar from pre-relativistic physics. In this paper we explore the background of Einsteins difficulties, going ...

We consider the attitude of astronomers in Argentina in connection with the new problems posed by relativity theory, before and after GR was presented. We begin considering the sequence of "technical" publications that appeared and use it to attempt to identify who were the relativity leaders and authors in the Argentina scientific community of the 1910-1920s. Among them there are natives of Argentina, permanent resident scientists, and occasional foreign visitors. They are e...

In this article, we argue that the theory of special relativity, as formulated by Einstein, is a philosophical rather than a scientific theory. What is scientific and experimentally supported is the formalism of the relativistic mechanics embedded in the Lorentz transformations and their direct mathematical, experimental and observational consequences. This is in parallel with the quantum mechanics where the scientific content and experimental support of this branch of physic...

This is a review with some comments on the A. Einstein`s 1911 paper, which he published as one of his many attempts of the general theory of relativity. The main point of the idea is to propose a new approach about light and its motion as well as study the assumption made by A. Einstein concerning the possibility of the variation of the speed of light in presence of gravitational field.

This is an article commissioned by the Spanish Physics Magazine ("Revista Espa\~nola de F\'isica") for the Centennial Anniversary of the discovery of General Relativity. The article reviews experimental and observational efforts to test Einstein's theory of General Relativity in a variety of scenarios (from the Solar System to binary pulsars, from the Sag A* to binary black hole and neutron star coalescences).

This article is an extended version of the article published by EDP Sciences at the occasion of the 150 years of the ``Soci\'et\'e Fran\c{c}aise de Physique'' (in French)

In this article, we discuss the idea of gravitational lensing, from a systematic, historical and didactic point of view. We show how the basic lensing equation together with the concepts of geometrical optics opens a space of implications that can be explored along different dimensions. We argue that Einstein explored the idea along different pathways in this space of implication, and that these explorations are documented by different calculational manuscripts. The conceptua...

This article discusses new material, published in Volume 12 of the Collected Papers of Albert Einstein, that addresses Einstein's knowledge of the Michelson-Morley experiment prior to 1905: in a lecture in Chicago in 1921, Einstein referred to the experiment, mentioned when he came upon it, and hinted at its influence. Arguments are presented to explain the contrast with Einstein's later pronouncements on the role of the experiment.