MOTION OF A GYROSCOPE ACCORDING TO EINSTEIN'S THEORY OF GRAVITATION
Supported in part by the U. S. Air Force through the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.
The Experimental Basis of Einstein's Theory.—Einstein's theory of gravitation, the general theory of relativity, has been accepted as the most satisfactory description of gravitational phenomena for more than forty years. It is a theory of great conceptual and structural elegance, and it is designed so that it automatically agrees in the appropriate limits with Galileo's observation of the equality of gravitational and inertial mass, with Newton's mechanics of gravitating bodies, and with Einstein's special theory of relativity. Leaving aside the very important matter of elegance, we wish in this section to examine the experimental basis of the theory. This basis consists of the three points of limiting agreement with earlier results just mentioned, together with certain astronomical evidence…
