21 APRIL 1923, Page 3

An assertion has come from America of the final verification

of Einstein's Law of Gravitation. This is a result of the eclipse observations made last September in a remote corner of Australia by the Lick Observatory party, under Dr. Campbell, whose report appeared in the Times of March 18th. It will be remembered that, after the eclipse expeditions of May, 1919, under Dr. Eddington and Dr. Crommelin, respectively, Einstein's prediction for the gravitational deflection of light was verified. But because there were criticisms and divergent opinion among astronomers on a matter of such serious import, it was decided to organize other expeditions for the total eclipse of September, 1922, in order to conclude the discussion. The result would appear to be a trium- phant vindication of Einstein's theory. Doubts, however, still exist, and must be taken seriously when they are those of eminent mathematicians of the order of Sir Joseph Larmor. And we must hope that some adequate answer may be forthcoming to clear the difficulties which he, together with other independent inquirers, seem to have found in the consistency of the Einsteinian reasoning. In a letter to the Times of Tuesday, Professor Larmor suggests that, on Einstein's own data, the calcula- tions for the deflection should have worked out at half the value which he asserted and which has been proved correct by the tests.