A column on the history and culture of geophysics and science in general

November 2015 marks the 100th anniversary of Einstein's theory of general relativity (GR). He published four papers on the subject in November 1915. Remarkable! The first two papers led to the field equations of GR, and the other two laid out vital consequences of the theory, including the anomalous precession of the perihelion of Mercury (unexplained since 1859) and the gravitational bending of light. The latter phenomenon was confirmed famously by Eddington's 1919 observation of a total solar eclipse and the shift of apparent position for stars, the light of which passed very near the sun. Einstein, already famous, became a household name--an early 20th-century superstar.