Erwin Finlay-Freundlich was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

, a pupil of Felix Klein

Felix Klein

Christian Felix Klein was a German mathematician, known for his work in group theory, function theory, non-Euclidean geometry, and on the connections between geometry and group theory...

. He was born in Biebrich

Wiesbaden-Biebrich

Biebrich is a borough of the city of Wiesbaden, Hesse, Germany. With over 36,000 inhabitants, it is the most-populated of Wiesbaden's boroughs. It is located south of the city center on the Rhine River, opposite the Mainz borough of Mombach...

, Germany. Freundlich was a working associate of Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was a German-born theoretical physicist who developed the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. For this achievement, Einstein is often regarded as the father of modern physics and one of the most prolific intellects in human history...

 and introduced experiments for which the general theory of relativity could be tested by astronomical observations based on the gravitational redshift

Gravitational redshift

In astrophysics, gravitational redshift or Einstein shift describes light or other forms of electromagnetic radiation of certain wavelengths that originate from a source that is in a region of a stronger gravitational field that appear to be of longer wavelength, or redshifted, when seen or...

.

After finishing his thesis with Felix Klein at the University of Göttingen in 1910, he became assistant at the Observatory in Berlin, where he became associated with Einstein. During a solar eclipse expedition in 1914 to verify general relativity, World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 broke out and he was interned in Russia. After the war, he was engaged in construction of a solar observatory in Potsdam, the Einsteinturm, and he was director of the Einstein-Institut. In 1933 he left Germany and was appointed professor at the University of Istanbul, which was reformed by Kemal Atatürk with the help of many German scholars. His appointment at the Charles University of Prague was terminated by the German occupation. On the recommendation of Arthur Stanley Eddington

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, OM, FRS was a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century. He was also a philosopher of science and a popularizer of science...

 he went to St. Andrews University in Scotland. From 1951 to 1959 he was John Napier

John Napier

John Napier of Merchiston – also signed as Neper, Nepair – named Marvellous Merchiston, was a Scottish mathematician, physicist, astronomer & astrologer, and also the 8th Laird of Merchistoun. He was the son of Sir Archibald Napier of Merchiston. John Napier is most renowned as the discoverer...

 professor of Astronomy. On his retirement he returned to his native town Wiesbaden and was appointed professor at the University of Mainz. Freundlich died in Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden

Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...

, Germany.

Freundlich researched the deflection of light rays passing close to the Sun. He proposed an experiment, during an eclipse, to verify the validity of Einstein's theory of general relativity. Freundlich's demonstration would have proven Newton

Isaac Newton

Sir Isaac Newton PRS was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist, and theologian, who has been "considered by many to be the greatest and most influential scientist who ever lived."...

's theories incorrect. He did conduct inconclusive tests on the prediction by Einstein's theory of gravitation-induced red shift of spectral lines in the Sun, using the solar observatories he had constructed in Potsdam and Istanbul.
In 1953 he proposed with Max Born

Max Born

Max Born was a German-born physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s...

 an alternative explanation of the red shifts observed in galaxies by a tired light

Tired light

Tired light is a class of hypothetical redshift mechanisms that was proposed as an alternative explanation for the redshift-distance relationship. These models have been proposed as alternatives to the metric expansion of space of which the Big Bang and the Steady State cosmologies are the most...

 model.

Publications

• Erwin Freundlich: Die Grundlagen der Einsteinschen Gravitationstheorie. Mit e. Vorw. von Albert Einstein. - Berlin : Springer, 1916. - 64 S. ; 8
• Erwin Finlay-Freundlich Über die Rotverschiebung der Spektrallinien und ax Born: Theoretische Bemerkungen zu Freundlichs Formel für die stellare Rotverschiebung - Göttingen : Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1953. - S. 96 - 108 ; 4; (Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen ; Jg. 1953, Nr. 7)

External links and resources

• School of Mathematics and Statistics. "Erwin Finlay-Freundlich". University of St Andrews
  University of St Andrews
  The University of St Andrews, informally referred to as "St Andrews", is the oldest university in Scotland and the third oldest in the English-speaking world after Oxford and Cambridge. The university is situated in the town of St Andrews, Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It was founded between...
  
  , Scotland
  Scotland
  Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
  
  .