Template:Did you know nominations/Felix Eberty

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... that the 1846 book The Stars and World History by Felix Eberty, which contemplated a faraway observer seeing "the earth at this moment as it existed at the time of Abraham", inspired a young Albert Einstein?

Source: "By the time that Felix Eberty, a German jurist and amateur astronomer, anonymously published “The Stars and World History,” in 1846, it was well known that light had a finite speed... Eberty was particularly fascinated by what this delay meant for a faraway observer of our planet. Perched on a distant star, he wrote, such a person might “see the earth at this moment as it existed at the time of Abraham.” Furthermore, by hopscotching across the cosmos, “he will be able to represent to himself, as rapidly as he pleases, that moment in the world’s history which he wishes to observe at leisure.” Eberty had witnessed great gains in the speed of transportation and communication during his lifetime, and he believed that humanity might soon be travelling even faster than light.

Among the impressionable young Germans who read Eberty and Bernstein was one named Albert Einstein."

Moved to mainspace by Thriley (talk). Number of QPQs required: 1. Nominator has 134 past nominations.

Thriley (talk) 21:39, 6 June 2024 (UTC).