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Astronomers Prove To Einstein That Stars Can Warp Light (theverge.com)

Astronomers have observed for the first time ever a distant star warp the light of another star, "making it seem as though the object changed its position in the sky," reports The Verge. The discovery is especially noteworthy as Albert Einstein didn't think such an observation would be possible. From the report: These events require stars that are very far apart to line up perfectly. That's why Einstein once wrote that "there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly." Our telescope technology has become far more sophisticated than in Einstein's day -- which is what allowed us to observe something he thought we'd never see. In 2014, a group of astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope spotted a rare type of microlensing, when a dense white dwarf star passed in front of another star thousands of light-years away. The stars weren't exactly aligned, but they were close enough that the white dwarf made it seem like the background star performed a small loop in the sky. "It looks like the white dwarf pushed it out of the way," Terry Oswalt, an astronomer at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who was not involved in this discovery but wrote a perspective piece in Science, tells The Verge. "That's not what happened, of course. It just looks like that." The astronomers also used the apparent movement of the background star to measure the mass of the passing white dwarf, a novel technique detailed in a paper published today in Science. And they say this isn't the last time they'll make measurements like this either. Now that they've figured out how to spot these kinds of lensing events, they're hoping to find even more with new ground- and space-based telescopes that are coming online soon.

96 comments

  1. The Wanderer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... obviously.

  2. Not by rodia · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The sun is a star, and the light-bending capacity of that thing has been demonstrated quite a while ago. Also, proving something to somebody dead is not possible. Are these headlines intentional bait for wisesh*ts?

    1. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The headline is worse than that. It implies that Einstein didn't believe in the existence of the phenomenon in question, which is a pretty ridiculous implication. A much more accurate headline might have been something along the lines of "Astronomers Demonstrate Observability of Light Warping Via Previously Impractical Means." -PCP

    2. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      BREAKING NEWS: Some things that weren't possible in 1919 are possible in 2017.

    3. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Pretty much. This is simply another example of ongoing improvements in instrumentation and data analysis. -PCP

    4. Re:Not by Joce640k · · Score: 4, Informative

      The fact that they still use Einstein's name in clickbait headlines is tribute to his genius.

      When he said "there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly" he probably meant "there is no hope of us observing this phenomenon directly", not "there is no hope of ever observing this phenomenon directly"

      People observed the sun bending light in 1919 - well inside Einstein's lifetime.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

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    5. Re:Not by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Thanks. Yeah "prove to Einstein" basically proves that the headline writer is a complete mong.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    6. Re:Not by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Lots of things stay pretty impossible. Would be fucking weird to suggest otherwise.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    7. Re:Not by Mr+D+from+63 · · Score: 1

      One could argue that we, humans, did not 'directly observe' it, we indirectly observed it through equipment that directly observed it, thus old Albert is still right.

    8. Re:Not by pipingguy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, they didn't mention what his reaction was.

      Is this just a novice mistake, English-as-not-mother-tongue or just general incompetence?

      Or maybe it's an intentional error designed to solicit comments like this, as you speculate. Too many people shrieking for attention these days, so they gotta try new ways of scamming you into clicking. It's sad, really.

    9. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough, although if we travel a bit it further down that road, Albert's ashes might starting taking some uneasy twirls. After all, he rather preferred the notion that the moon was still there even when nobody was looking at it. -PCP

    10. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you meant "highly improbable," particularly given the flip side of the broader subject matter at hand ;) ... -PCP

    11. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, because he didn't say absolutely impossible. Or even forever impossible. Or any such future perfect tense of impossible. Since there's no assessment of the probability, there's little use in using "probable" or "improbable", since there is no assessment of the actual probability. Indeed semantically, improbable is nonsense since it merely is a low probability.

      So while impossible would imply a perfect future where it remains still impossible, pretty impossible adds the qualifier of lesser stature than impossible, therefore cannot be held to be a perfect eternal state of impossible.

      It is impossible for humans to take holiday trips to the moon, if only because nobody is selling a holiday to the moon. But that doesn't mean that if someone sets one up that this remains impossible. Though it may be impossible for me to afford it.

    12. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You missed the joke. -PCP

    13. Re:Not by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 1
      How long have we observed gravitational lensing again? The theory was in place

      A gravitational lens is a distribution of matter (such as a cluster of galaxies) between a distant light source and an observer, that is capable of bending the light from the source as the light travels towards the observer. This effect is known as gravitational lensing, and the amount of bending is one of the predictions of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity. (Classical physics also predicts the bending of light, but only half that predicted by general relativity.) Although either Orest Khvolson (1924) or Frantisek Link (1936) is sometimes credited as being the first to discuss the effect in print, the effect is more commonly associated with Einstein, who published a more famous article on the subject in 1936.

      Fritz Zwicky posited in 1937 that the effect could allow galaxy clusters to act as gravitational lenses. It was not until 1979 that this effect was confirmed by observation of the so-called "Twin QSO" SBS 0957+561.

      I know that there's a tradition here of being late with the news, but THAT late?

      --
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    14. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are these headlines intentional bait for wisesh*ts?

      Seems to be, it caught you.

    15. Re:Not by fazig · · Score: 1

      And that one would be using quite the Flat-Earther logic. Many things that Einstein's work predicts cannot be observed through our natural senses directly. Too small are most of the things to be noticed in our everyday life. Yet we can see them indirectly through machines that provide some visualization of the phenomenons that are comprehensible for us.

    16. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is Bill Nye "science"

    17. Re:Not by ArsenneLupin · · Score: 1

      BREAKING NEWS: Some things that weren't possible in 1919 are possible in 2017.

      ... whereas other things were possible in 1919, but are no longer now. Such as reading comprehension.

    18. Re:Not by Deadstick · · Score: 1

      Matter of fact, /. would have been much better off to copy the corresponding story in Soylent...

    19. Re:Not by ceoyoyo · · Score: 1

      He may well have meant there is no hope of ever observing the phenomenon directly. In 1920 there was considerable argument about whether certain "nebula" were independent galaxies or just parts of our own, and a comprehensive star survey was being prepared... containing a quarter of a million stars.

      Without modern telescope technology, CCD cameras, computers, and a knowledge of just how many stars there are, it would be nearly impossible to detect that kind of effect in reasonable timeframes. Also, in 1920 only three white dwarfs were known, and nobody knew that they were compact objects.

      Future knowledge of all those things would have been hard to anticipate in 1920.

    20. Re:Not by Nchantim · · Score: 1

      The fact that they still use Einstein's name in clickbait headlines is tribute to his genius.

      When he said "there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly" he probably meant "there is no hope of us observing this phenomenon directly", not "there is no hope of ever observing this phenomenon directly"

      People observed the sun bending light in 1919 - well inside Einstein's lifetime.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      And he certainly didn't think that the phenomenon was impossible, as seems to have been reported or implied by much of the media.

    21. Re:Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You believe that's air you are breathing?

    22. Re:Not by theguyfromsaturn · · Score: 1

      Plus, the headline makes it look like Einstein didn't believe stars could bend light of other stars, when what he doubted was our ability to observe it.

      --
      I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
    23. Re: Not by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Newtons theory predicted light deflection.
      Einsteins theory predicted 2x that. Why science journalists, and most physicists writing popular books don't state this.....
      The error bars from the 1919 eclipse expedition wrer large, but supported GR over Newton.

  3. How by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you prove something to a dead guy?

    1. Re:How by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The new Slashdot crowd is really retarded.

    2. Re:How by Tristao · · Score: 0

      Sure, after their observations, they found a really obvious way to travel faster than light, and after a couple of experiments, they sat backwards in their FTL drive, which, as it turns out, is the way to travel to the past. After that, it's history. It wasn't, but now it is.

    3. Re:How by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is wholly down to BeauHD, his posts are fairly often very poor. Far worse than any of the other editors.

    4. Re:How by Paradise+Pete · · Score: 1

      Then why didn't he mention it? Sworn to secrecy?

    5. Re:How by Tristao · · Score: 0

      Of course not, what a ridiculous notion! He commandeered the FTL drive and used it in successive attempts to convince his cousin Elsa Lowenthal to do it, like any sane person would.

    6. Re:How by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      That's not fair. msmash is definitely a contender.

  4. Wtf? by thesupraman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's see.
    Einstein isn't going to get anything proven to him. He is dead.
    However, he showed that this should be true, why would it need to be proven to him?
    Let alone the fact that gravitational lensing, which uses this exact effect, is a common technique these days.

    What is the point?

    1. Re:Wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is exactly the same response I would give.
      Are we missing something here?

    2. Re:Wtf? by TimothyHollins · · Score: 4, Insightful

      All the stupidity in the text can be explained with two words - "The Verge"

    3. Re:Wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's definitely a bad headline. My thoughts are in another reply. -PCP

    4. Re:Wtf? by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      It builds on the hype around Genius (U.S. TV series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    5. Re:Wtf? by enriquevagu · · Score: 5, Informative

      Very good question, because of the quite bad headline.

      At the time of writing his original paper regarding light bending between two stars, Einstein was already sure that the light-bending effect occurs (it had been already observed during a solar eclipse in 1919). However, he assumed that it would never be observable with two stars, one in the background and other in the foreground (different to the sun) because the light of the two stars would merge and not be distinguishable. From his paper (full copy here): Of course, there is no hope of observing this phenomenon directly. First, we shall scarcely ever approach closely enough to such a central line. Second, the angle b will defy the resolving power of our instruments [...]".

      The relevant contribution is that current science (Hubble resolution) and appropriate search has managed to observe this effect. In particular, the linked overview clarifies it: Because the foreground star observed by Sahu et al. was about 400 times brighter than the background star, the brightening of their combined light was far too small to be detectable even with Hubble. However, the apparent displacement in the background star’s position, so-called “astrometric lensing,” was measurable. The interesting part is that by measuring the displacement of light, they have been also able to measure the mass of the star, and determine that it is not an exotic "iron core" white dwarf.

    6. Re:Wtf? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is it really so innocent? Whenever I see a story like this, it seems almost designed to alienate the scientifically illiterate from everyone else. Imagine being on social media and seeing someone you used to consider an expert on [related topic] pick this up with gusto. It's hard then to imagine that they have even a basic grasp of gravitation, science history, or even critical thinking. Sure, most people don't, but a lot of daily functioning is enabled by "benefit of the doubt", while idiocy-clickbait stories like this systematically whittle it away.

    7. Re:Wtf? by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Einstein isn't going to get anything proven to him. He is dead.

      Really?
      How about time travel :)

      Yes I know, just as stupid as the thing you pointed out.

      Ironically today I got up the the bit in Greg Egan's SF novel "The Arrows of Time" where some characters take a twelve year side trip to try to observe gravitational lensing.

    8. Re:Wtf? by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Johnny Flynn as Young Albert Einstein

      Pfft. As if anyone could replace Yahoo Serious in that role.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  5. Are you serious? by jimtheowl · · Score: 5, Interesting

    May 29 1919 is very, very old news.

    1. Re:Are you serious? by edx93 · · Score: 1

      May 29 1919 is very, very old news.

      well, this is Slashdot...

    2. Re:Are you serious? by Toad-san · · Score: 1

      I've been faithfully watching the "Genius" TV series, and they made it very clear (last week I think) that a friend of Einstein definitively proved his Theory of Relativity was correct by photographing a solar eclipse down off Africa Madagascar or some such. Yeah, 1919 or so, just after the end of WW I.

      Besides, I don't like that statement:

        "It looks like the white dwarf pushed it out of the way," Terry Oswalt, an astronomer at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University who was not involved in this discovery but wrote a perspective piece in Science, tells The Verge. "That's not what happened, of course. It just looks like that."

      Maybe the white dwarf _did_ push it out of the way! I don't see any definitive proof that it didn't!

      Sheesh, scientists!

  6. Nothing to see, move along by franzrogar · · Score: 2

    Einstein said such thing (light warping) happens but there was no hope (no probability) to see that. And you know what? He was right, as far as his whole life. So, even dead, there's nothing to "prove" to him that he didn't prove already.

    This case is the similar (but not the same) with Higgs' Bosom, Higgs tought he would be dead before proving the existence of his bosom. He was wrong.

    1. Re:Nothing to see, move along by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Einstein said such thing (light warping) happens but there was no hope (no probability) to see that. And you know what? He was right, as far as his whole life.

      I'm pretty sure Einstein was still alive in 1919. We've been documenting gravitational lensing of stars whose position passed close to our own sun since then. TFA isn't news at all.

  7. Headline written by stupid shit by Dog-Cow · · Score: 3

    1) The term "prove to" implies that Einstein believed that such lensing doesn't happen.
    2) Einstein is dead, so no scientists are proving anything to him.

    1. Re:Headline written by stupid shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  8. Oh man... by skam240 · · Score: 2

    Oh man, that Einstein, what a dummy.

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  9. Dupe-wraping by DrYak · · Score: 1

    That's because this dupe got time-warped by gravity time dilation.
    (The distant star is massive, after all)

    --
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  10. "Higgs' Bosom" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "his bosom" ... Buahahahahaha!

    You'd think Higgs would get to prove the existence of lots of bosoms being a physics superstar and all... ;)

    1. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Funny

      I tried to measure it, but ran into a Heisenberg problem. Every time I was about to measure a bosom, it moved away.

      I also usually felt a strange stinging sensation in my cheek...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Tristao · · Score: 0

      Sadly, not true.
      Biologists do it with clones.
      Botanists do it in the bushes.
      Zoologists do it with animals.
      Physicists think about it.

    3. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For additional verification of the indicated phenomenon, you need to upgrade to women who deliver a punch instead of a slap. As I always say, the more data, the merrier. -PCP

    4. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Falconhell · · Score: 2

      Like I said to Schroedinger, "What happens in the cat box, stays in the cat box"

    5. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you usually wear a breath mask at home or are you used to the smell?

    6. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      That guy was recently arrested at the airport for terrorism, his luggage contained a dead cat and some strange apparatus housing some sort of nuclear device.

      The nerve he had, he said something like that the TSA agent was responsible for the cat's demise, just 'cause he opened the box. Might have been some sort of trap. Investigations are still underway.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Falconhell · · Score: 1

      Then, a Bell rang and the evidence, the cat was eaten by Pavlovs dog.

    8. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by MiniMike · · Score: 1

      Like I said to Schroedinger, "What happens in the cat box, stays in the cat box"

      That's the exact same thing my kids say when I tell them it's their turn to scoop the cat box. Wouldn't be surprised to find a dead cat in there from the smell.

    9. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by RatherBeAnonymous · · Score: 1

      You may recall the time Schrodinger was pulled over for speeding and the officer asked to search the vehicle. Having nothing to hide, Schrodinger consented. When the officer opened the trunk he found a dead cat and asked, "Did you know you have a dead cat in your trunk?" Schrodinger replied indignantly, "Well, I do now!"

    10. Re:"Higgs' Bosom" by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Love it!

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  11. Cover Up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It looks like the white dwarf pushed it out of the way. That's not what happened, of course. It just looks like that.

    Nice try, but that is just what the Patriarchy and the Illumanati want everyone to believe.

  12. No shit by locater16 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    No shit? This was proven like, a century ago. And astronomers have been using gravitational lensing as a kind of natural telescope for years now. Somehow a direct observation of star to star lensing hasn't been seen before, so uhhh, cool I guess. But this isn't a scientific discovery by any means.

    1. Re:No shit by edx93 · · Score: 1

      No, it's not. In fact, both the title and summary are moronically wrong. The crux of the article is that they used gravitational lensing to explain some weird stellar phenomena. I don't blame you for not having read TFA, I just did to kill time...

    2. Re:No shit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, it's not. In fact, both the title and summary are moronically wrong. The crux of the article is that they used gravitational lensing to explain some weird stellar phenomena. I don't blame you for not having read TFA, I just did to kill time...

      I didn't read TFA either, I figured with stupid a headline and summary that stupid my time would be better spent trolling /. or watching hentai.

    3. Re: No shit by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I don't care if you had to kill time, there are no excuses. Heretic!

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  13. Einstein... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtOpj-M-j-c

  14. He's dead. You can't talk to him. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So you can't prove anything to him. You can prove he's wrong, but you can't prove it to HIM. He's dead.

    And it may not be wrong. There WAS no hope to do it. Did you ask if anyone had hope we could? No? If nobody had hope we could see it directly (and it wasn't necessary to do so anyway), then he was right.

    But you can't prove to him he's right either. Because he's dead.

  15. Observation != proof by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Proofs are possible only in mathematics. No amount of affirming observations is considered proof. One counter observation is enough to disprove.

    Einstein developed the Theory of Relativity, calculated what would be observed. The apparent angular displacement due to such micro lensing turned out to be so small, he said, "such a small displacement is unlikely to be observed". He is right, even after this observation, no terrestrial telescope can hope to observe this. You need to get a telescope the size of a school bus into orbit, install a contact lens to that telescope in orbit, and point it at the right spot to see it.

    --
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    1. Re:Observation != proof by pipingguy · · Score: 2

      Jean Cretien, former Prime Minister of Canada, would like to have a word with you...

      "A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven." - Jean Chretien

    2. Re:Observation != proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not his fault. Deniers of all stripes, holocaust, globe earth, moon landings, climate change, old earth, whatever, all insist on ABSOLUTE proof, zero uncertainty, absolute forever eternal proof, and that is what they mean when they ask for proof in science.

      That the insistence is on an impossible absolute proof, only possible in the abstractions of, say, mathematics or other logical abstractions, is why the OP said what they said.

      If you want to correct him, you had better get on to the various flavours of denier about their insistence on proof being something you say it is not.

      A lot of fake intelligentsia people also play this absolute proof is the only proof canard, where they insist that if it's not PROVEN then they could be right and you haven't, for example, proven god does not exist, because there is no absolute claim on that possible, since the term "god" merely gets changed to avoid the proof against the definition so far supplied.

      The OP is not wrong in their assertion.

      The idiots proclaiming that any claim must have ABSOLUTE PERFECT PROOF before saying something has been proven have driven them to it. So get on THEIR back.

    3. Re:Observation != proof by swillden · · Score: 1

      Proofs are possible only in mathematics.

      But disproof by counterexample is always possible. Einstein said we wouldn't be able to observe this, and since we've observed it we've have disproven that claim. Not knocking on Einstein; obviously he had no basis for theorizing the sort of observational capabilities we have now -- and even then he threw in a weasel word, "unlikely", to qualify it.

      The apparent angular displacement due to such micro lensing turned out to be so small, he said, "such a small displacement is unlikely to be observed". He is right, even after this observation, no terrestrial telescope can hope to observe this.

      Well, he would be right if he'd said it can't be observed from a terrestrial telescope, but made no such restriction. I would also not be so ready to claim that no terrestrial observation could ever be made. Adaptive optics, image post-processing and telescope arrays all offer opportunities for increasing the resolving power of ground-based scopes. I'm sure there are other clever techniques that could be applied.

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    4. Re:Observation != proof by clickety6 · · Score: 1

      Proofs are possible only in mathematics.

      And puddings!

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    5. Re:Observation != proof by 140Mandak262Jamuna · · Score: 1
      In his time, there were no orbital telescopes or non terrestrial telescopes. So for all the types of telescopes that he knew his assertion stands.

      It is interesting you bring up adaptive optics and image post processing. How would I know the observed displacements are real observation, not some software glitch in adaptive optics or post processing?

      400 years ago when Galileo was using astronomical telescopes (sorry I misused the term terrestrial telescope. Astronomical telescopes use two lenses or one lens and one mirror to produce an inverted image. Terrestrial telescopes use an additional lens to create the image right side up. The term I should have used is earth based telescopes) with such bad quality lenses, the spherical aberration was significant. The chromatic fringes, blurry mildly out of focus images had an eerie quality. The Church very wary of it, the way I am wary of image processing. Even when he focused on distant church steeples and villas on hills and showed the images were real, the upside down nature of them, and the shifted colors and double and triple images due to chromatic ghosting made it look very suspect. They could never satisfy themselves there is no devil inside the machine producing images to fool them.

      Galileo also used a classic pedantic technique of conversation between three people, one wise teacher, one bright student and one ignorant student to explain his theories. His adversaries framed him well by claiming the ignorant student character was modeled after the Pope and set the Church against him.

      --
      sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
    6. Re: Observation != proof by KGIII · · Score: 1

      And booze.

      --
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    7. Re:Observation != proof by iggymanz · · Score: 1

      proofs are possible in liquor, the highest in the hard stuff. My one counter-example destroys your assertion.

    8. Re:Observation != proof by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, he did not say we would not be able to observe it, he said there was no hope of observing it directly.

      Don't make claims of a thing not said being disproven, because I could just disprove you by pretending you said that the earth is made of cheese, and it is disproven by the fact that rocks are not cheese, so at least that part of the earth is not cheese.

    9. Re:Observation != proof by swillden · · Score: 1

      It is interesting you bring up adaptive optics and image post processing. How would I know the observed displacements are real observation, not some software glitch in adaptive optics or post processing?

      The same way you know the image from the Hubble is accurate, after the processing applied to its imagery. Calibration and great care.

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    10. Re:Observation != proof by swillden · · Score: 1

      he said there was no hope of observing it directly.

      But we just observed it directly. Depending, of course, on your definition of "directly". If you define it to mean "with the unaided human eye", then he was right. If you allow the eye to be augmented, then you have to specify what forms of augmentation are to be permitted, and where you draw the line is totally arbitrary.

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  16. Moronic Title (And Summary); Better Article by edx93 · · Score: 2
    First, as many previous commenters pointed out, you can't prove something to someone who's dead. Also, this has been proved 100 years ago (by Einstein himself, of all people). That being said, I bothered to read TFA and the article from Science and, as you can imagine, it says nothing of the sort. Rather:

    Here lies the importance of Sahu et al.’s project. Their astrometric lensing mea surements show convincingly that Stein 2051 B is not an exotic “iron core” white dwarf but a rather typical one, with a carbon-oxygen core and a normal mass and radius, thus resolving the long-standing debate over its nature.

    (sic) So, they didn't prove that gravitational lensing exists (duh), but rather it was used to explain some weird anomaly. Cool, but definitely not as headline grabby as "Scientists Prove Einstein Wrong".

  17. Wow... Just wow. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did they resurrect him just to rub his nose into it? And did they steal his lunch money afterwards? Amazing!

  18. Did They Dig That Fucker Up? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Did the dig that fucker up and rub it in his boney face?

    How did anyone prove anything to Einstein in 2014?

    Completely worthless editors. Never change Slashdot.

    1. Re:Did They Dig That Fucker Up? by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 1

      He was cremated, perhaps they rubbed his ashes into the telescope. Or perhaps they lacked the foresight and imagination required to conceive of such a stupid and ill informed headline to describe what they actually did.

  19. Most Ignorant Headline Ever! by Roger+W+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

    The headline is worse than that. It implies that Einstein didn't believe in the existence of the phenomenon in question...

    Oh it's even worse because the reason Einstein (and everyone else) believed his theory of general relativity was correct was due to the Arthur Eddington's expedition to view the solar eclipse of 1919 where he observed that the sun bent the light of a distant star changing its apparent position!

    What is even more insane is that both the articles linked in the summary start out mentioning this 1919 observation proving that the submitter either never read the articles he was submitting or did not understand what they were talking about. This article is clearly a contender for the most ignorant article on slashdot award.

    1. Re: Most Ignorant Headline Ever! by KGIII · · Score: 1

      I presume that award is a daily, or weekly, award? I'm not sure it stands, as a contender, In a longer time frame.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
    2. Re:Most Ignorant Headline Ever! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It wasn't immediately obvious to me, but the tone of the headline is actually typical of ignorant spoiled shits crowd. They love feeling superior, they love telling "know-it-alls" how dumb they are, etc. People who don't understand things can't wait for the chance to tell someone who does that they are an idiot. It comes from this self-loathing psychological dysfunction...

  20. First time ever? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm pretty sure this exact effect was measured and used to first confirm the theory of relativity in 1919.

    1. Re:First time ever? by craigminah · · Score: 1

      In 1919 they had proven gravity could bend light.

  21. actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The fact that they still use Einstein's name in clickbait headlines is tribute to his genius.

    no, it's a tribute to how much Jews are like women... they can't stop talking about themselves.

  22. MISLEADING HEADLINE by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Einstein thought it happened, just that finding a star combination was extremely unlikely. The telescopes available in his day would never find those 2 stars.
    He came up with the idea of gravity warping light.

  23. Shut up, Naysayers! by RumGunner · · Score: 1

    Take that, Einstein, you bastard! Finally, you get what you deserve!

  24. so they dug up einstein? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what else where they yelling at him as the title suggests?

  25. Your are all missing the real point of the story by jmcwork · · Score: 1

    They are trying to tell us that Einstein is actually still alive!

  26. Pics... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...or it didn't happen.

  27. einstein by Rekso · · Score: 1

    I am interested on einstein as clickbait