Page:Eddington A. Space Time and Gravitation. 1920.djvu/151

VIII] favourable for the third crucial test. Unfortunately the predicted shift is indistinguishable from that caused by a velocity of the star in the line-of-sight on Doppler's principle. Thus the expected shift on the sun is equivalent to that caused by a receding velocity of 0.634 kilometres per second. In the case of the sun we know by other evidence exactly what the line-of-sight velocity should be; but we have not this knowledge for other stars. The only indication that could be obtained would be the detection of an average motion of recession of the more massive stars. It seems rather unlikely that there should be a real preponderance of receding motions among stars taken indiscriminately from all parts of the sky; and the apparent effect might then be attributed to the Einstein shift. Actually the most massive stars (those of spectral type B) have been found to show an average velocity of recession of about 4.5 km. per sec., which would be explained if the values of $$m/r$$ for these stars are about seven times greater than the value for the sun—a quite reasonable hypothesis. This phenomenon was well-known to astrophysicists some years before Einstein's theory was published. But there are so many possible interpretations that no stress should be placed on this evidence. Moreover the very diffuse "giant" stars of type M have also a considerable systematic velocity of recession, and for these $$m/r$$ must be much less than for the sun.