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
science thinking path
[When thinking about the new relativity and quantum theories] I have felt a homesickness for the paths of physical science where there are ore or less discernible handrails to keep us from the worst morasses of foolishness.
stars thinking giving
A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy; A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe. The figures may not be very trustworthy, but I think they give a correct impression.
thinking two study
We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because 'two' is 'one and one.' We forget that we still have to make a study of 'and.'
thinking mathematical-logic two
We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'.
thinking ideas design
The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.
science bottles atoms
The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrödinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
falling-in-love love-is men
Falling in love is one of the activities forbidden that tiresome person, the consistently reasonable man.
reality
The word reality frightens me.
science atoms levels
But it is necessary to insist more strongly than usual that what I am putting before you is a model-the Bohr model atom-because later I shall take you to a profounder level of representation in which the electron instead of being confined to a particular locality is distributed in a sort of probability haze all over the atom.
arrows physics entropy
So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.
ocean sea two
Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematize what it reveals. He arrives at two generalizations: (1) No sea-creature is less than two inches long. (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it.
science space doe
There is no space without aether, and no aether which does not occupy space.
knowledge math idols
Proof is an idol before which the mathematician tortures himself.
perfect impossible physics
It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.