Watch your grandfather clock next time there's an eclipse. It might be trying to tell you something, says Govert Schilling.

Nothing is more captivating than a total eclipse of the sun. Darkness races across the surface of the Earth. The sky turns stale blue. Temperatures drop. Dogs bark. And then, of course, there is the alien beauty of the sun's pearly white corona surrounding the black silhouette of the moon.

But there may be more to an eclipse than meets the eye. Swinging pendulums go wild as if some mysterious force were tugging on them. Sensitive gravimeters give readings that fluctuate violently. Gravity itself seems to quiver a bit. Or so say a small band of physicists who claim that these mysterious phenomena hint at a fundamental flaw in Einstein's general theory of relativity.

Needless to say, such claims have proved controversial. Celestial alignments, pendulum experiments, Einstein bashing - it all smacks of fringe science that deserves to be ignored. Surely there must be some conventional explanation.

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