Web site: http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/
by
Oxford University
Press (2002)
Here we find
history presented in the “modern” way, as far as possible how it really
happened, working from original documents, instead of the more usual sanatised
myths, invented either by the scientists concerned or, more often, by their
ardent admirers. Waller’s main interest
is in the history of medicine, but he devotes two good chapters to physics: the
“confirmation” of Einstein’s warped space-time from the 1919 eclipse
observations, and Millikan’s oil-drop experiments, supposed to confirm the
constancy of the charge of the electron.
Most of the
material on the 1919 eclipse comes from Collins and Pinch, The Golem
(see book list). The material on
Millikan comes partly from his published papers (the first admits to rejecting
some data, later ones gloss over this fact) and partly from discussions at the
time. If you take account of the
rejected data, the results can be seen to be consistent with a variable charge
– perhaps with a maximum possible one, as per the theory of Eric Reiter.
Quite apart
from the physics, this is a good read.
return to book list