S04E09: HUM223 Wk7: Lights All Askew: The Eclipse That Unsettled the Modern Mind (Dali, Newton, Einstein & More)

History Chats with Dr. S. · Oct 12, 2026 · 21m

Title:

Lights All Askew: The Eclipse That Unsettled the Modern Mind (Dali, Newton, Einstein & More)

Description:

On May 29, 1919, a Quaker astronomer stood on a cloudy island off Africa, waiting to see if starlight would bend. When it did, Newton's clockwork universe gave way to Einstein's relativity, and the modern world promptly confused relativity with relativism. In this episode we trace that "no fixed reference point" mood through Cubism, Schoenberg's atonality, stream-of-consciousness novels, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and Yeats's "The Second Coming," then follow Salvador Dalí…