Theory Testing and Eclipses

The 1919 eclipse test is widely considered to be one of the classic examples of theory testing in scientific history. So successful was this famous test that following it most theory testing in gravitational physics focused on metric theories of gravity. This talk looks at the role of 20th century eclipse tests in discriminating between metric theories of gravity. Examples include Nordstrom’s theory and the Jordan-Brans-Dicke theory, which was the subject of interest in the last professionally mounted light deflection eclipse expedition, by the University of Texas in 1973. By then the parametrized post-Newtonian framework had been developed as a tool to enable theory testing of this kind. The question of how important eclipse tests were in this endeavor is considered.