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361 bytes added ,  18:22, February 24, 2007
revert: content was in no way parodic. It's a common misconception that relativity theory applies to perception or morality and needs to be dismissed
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British Historian Paul Johnson declares the turning point in 20th century to have been when fellow Briton Sir [[Arthur Eddington]], an esteemed English astronomer, ventured out on a boat off Africa in 1919 with a local Army unit to observe the bending of starlight around the sun during a total eclipse.  Upon his return to England declared that his observations proven the theory of relativity.  In fact recent analysis of Eddington's work revealed that he was biased in selecting his data, and that overall his data was inconclusive about the theory of relativity. The prediction was later confirmed by more rigorous experiments, such as those performed by the [[Hubble Space Telescope]].
 
British Historian Paul Johnson declares the turning point in 20th century to have been when fellow Briton Sir [[Arthur Eddington]], an esteemed English astronomer, ventured out on a boat off Africa in 1919 with a local Army unit to observe the bending of starlight around the sun during a total eclipse.  Upon his return to England declared that his observations proven the theory of relativity.  In fact recent analysis of Eddington's work revealed that he was biased in selecting his data, and that overall his data was inconclusive about the theory of relativity. The prediction was later confirmed by more rigorous experiments, such as those performed by the [[Hubble Space Telescope]].
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Like most significant scientific discoveries, relativity has been widely adopted as a social analogy, but the comparison has little factual basis (the common quip about placing a hand on a hot stove has nothing to do with Einstein's theory). For example the idea of moral relativity exists independent of (and substantially predates) the theory of relativity.
    
Many ongoing questions in physics arise from relativity. For example there is much debate on the curvature of the universe as a whole - while it locally curves inwards at planets and stars, it is not obvious that it curves inwards overall. It may by flat, or curve outwards (a counterintuitive situation in which the universe is hyperbolic). Also, while concepts from relativity have been integrated into [[quantum mechanics]], the two are still incompatible. Development of a [[quantum theory of gravity]] (the "theory of everything") is arguably the most important research effort in physics today, one of the most notable examples being [[string theory]].
 
Many ongoing questions in physics arise from relativity. For example there is much debate on the curvature of the universe as a whole - while it locally curves inwards at planets and stars, it is not obvious that it curves inwards overall. It may by flat, or curve outwards (a counterintuitive situation in which the universe is hyperbolic). Also, while concepts from relativity have been integrated into [[quantum mechanics]], the two are still incompatible. Development of a [[quantum theory of gravity]] (the "theory of everything") is arguably the most important research effort in physics today, one of the most notable examples being [[string theory]].
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