Arthur Eddington
Arthur Eddington
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington OM FRSwas an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician of the early 20th century who did his greatest work in astrophysics. He was also a philosopher of science and a popularizer of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honor...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth28 December 1882
facts accepting theory
Never accept a fact until it has been verified by theory.
world consciousness abstract
The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.
book writing army
If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. The chance of their doing so is decidedly more favourable than the chance of the molecules returning to one half of the vessel.
drama shadow watches
In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.
law mind may
It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control. It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.
arrows physics entropy
So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.
years tunes bassoon
There once was a brainy baboon, Who always breathed down a bassoon, For he said, It appears That in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune.
lines uniforms body
Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn't.
british-scientist footprint shores
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.
british-scientist competent distant future hope judgment shall sound understand
It is sound judgment to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.
british-scientist
Something unknown is doing we don't know what.
british-scientist mind possible
It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.
british-scientist idol whom
Proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.