SCIENCE
Dr. George van Biesbroeck, Belgian-born and 72, was a happy astronomer this week. Stroking his white goatee and skipping cheerfully around his office in Wisconsin's Yerkes Observatory, he told how he had checked with elegant precision the basic scientific law of the universe: Einstein's relativity.
In 1916, Einstein announced that one consequence of his theory would be that light should be bent slightly when it passes through a strong gravitational field. The only practical way to observe this effect was to photograph stars beyond the sun during a solar eclipse. Since their light passes near the sun and through its powerful gravitation,...
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