Icelandic physics students to repeat experiment that confirmed Einstein
Tuesday 11th August 2026 on 15:46 in
Iceland
A group of Icelandic physics students plans to use the total solar eclipse to repeat one of the most famous experiments in scientific history, mbl.is reports. The project will recreate the 1919 Eddington experiment, which provided the first experimental confirmation of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.
Matthías Baldursson Harksen, a doctoral student in theoretical physics, described the project in an interview with Árni Matthíasson on the Dagmál programme. He and four bachelor’s students in astrophysics will attempt to measure how the Sun’s gravity bends light from distant stars.
“We are going to look at the stars around it, and what one can see then is that the stars will shift. They will appear to be in a different place than where one would otherwise see them,” Matthías said.
Einstein became famous almost overnight
Arthur Eddington carried out a similar experiment during a total eclipse in 1919. The results supported Einstein’s theory of relativity and attracted enormous attention.
“In a way, Einstein was shot into the starry sky,” Matthías said, noting that Einstein became world-famous almost overnight when the media reported the results.
History could easily have turned out differently. In 1914, German astronomer Erwin Finlay-Freundlich planned to conduct the same kind of experiment but was arrested in Sevastopol when the First World War broke out. At the time, Einstein had made an error in his calculations.
“Einstein might never have become this star if he had managed to do it in 1914,” Matthías said.
Measuring a tiny shift
The group’s experiment will involve photographing stars near the Sun during the total eclipse and comparing their positions with their positions under normal conditions.
“The light bends,” Matthías said. The Sun’s gravity changes the path of light from distant stars, making them appear to shift slightly across the sky.
The shift is extremely small. With modern cameras, it can amount to about one pixel, but that is enough to measure the effect predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity.