On April 8th of this year\, at times which vary locally but which are known precisely in advance\, Arkansans will be treated to a unique spectacle\, a total solar eclipse. It is truly unique \, because only Earth\, in our solar system\, is fortunate enough to have a Moon which is exactly the same apparent size in our sky as the Sun. But how do we know so precisely when\, and from where\, the eclipse will be vi ewable? The story of how scientists have learned to predict eclipses so ac curately is a long and fascinating one\, which is also in many respects th e history of science itself. It is a story which involves many famous name s\, Thales of Miletus\, the &ldquo\;first scientist\,&rdquo\; Alexander th e Great\, Ptolemy\, Columbus\, Copernicus\, Kepler\, Newton and Einstein. It is a story of discovery which is still ongoing today as scientists\, an d the general public\, gather to watch darkness at noon (as will be the ca se near Durango\, Mexico).
\nDaniel Kennefick is a professor of Phys ics at the University of Arkansas. He received his Ph. D. in Physics from Caltech in 1997. After a postdoc in Cardiff\, Wales\, he joined the facult y at Caltech where he worked as an editor at the Einstein Papers Project. He has been in Fayetteville since 2003. In 2007 he published a book on the history of gravitational waves called Traveling at the Speed of Thought. He is also the co-author of An Einstein Encyclopedia. Most recently he is the author of No Shadow of a Doubt: The 1919 Eclipse That Confirmed Einste in's Theory of Relativity. His physics research focuses on supermassive bl ack holes at the centers of galaxies\, both as possible generators of grav itational waves (when they are orbited by stellar mass black holes) and fo r their role in galaxy structure and evolution. He is a member of both the LIGO scientific collaboration and the LISA Consortium.
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