In 1970, astronomer Robert Dicke used a rotating mask to measure the difference between the equatorial diameter and the polar diameter of the Sun. He concluded that the Sun was 0.087 arcseconds bigger at its equator than poles. This finding caused quite a stir because to get this much of a 'bulge' the interior of the Sun would have to be rotating 20 times faster than the surface we see, which would have caused havoc with the solar magnetic field. In 1974, an independent set of measurements were made by Hill using a technique that was not affected by the same kinds of observational problems as Dicke's work, and they got 0.018 +/- 0.012 arc seconds which is consistent, both with little or no enhanced rotation in the interior, and with little or no statistically significant oblatness. Any oblatness would have violated the general relativistic prediction of the precession of the perihelion of Mercury's orbit, because the measured value is almost exactly the predicted amount from general relativity, with no room left over for a solar oblatness effect.