The Portuguese Academic Community and the Theory of Relativity

• Autores: Augusto José dos Santos Fitas
• Localización: e-Journal of Portuguese History, ISSN-e 1645-6432, Vol. 3, Nº. 2, 2005
• Idioma: inglés
• Enlaces
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• Resumen

  • The theory of relativity was a scientific subject that interested a small number of Portuguese scientists in the first decades of the twentieth century. Portugal was associated with the observational confirmation of general relativity-observations of the solar eclipse were carried out on the island of Principe; however, no Portuguese astronomers took part in the scientific expedition. International seminars, led by foreign scientists and held in Portugal at the beginning of the 1920s and 1930s, were important. A few Portuguese mathematicians, rather than physicists, were first attracted to this theory and the few academic papers dealing with it were published abroad by two members of this group.