Arthur Eddington Quotes - Page 3

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• I am aware that many critics consider the conditions in the stars not sufficiently extreme . . . the stars are not hot enough. The critics lay themselves open to an obvious retort: we tell them to go and find a hotter place.

  Arthur Eddington

  Stars, Hot, Enough

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• 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.

  Arthur Eddington

  Book, Writing, Army

  The Nature of the Physical World ch. 4 (1928)

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• The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Atoms, Bottles

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• What we makes of the world must be largely dependent on the sense-organs that we happen to possess. How the world must have changed since the man came to rely on his eyes rather than his nose.

  Arthur Eddington

  Eye, Men, Noses

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures (1927)”, p.329, Cambridge University Press

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• In the most modern theories of physics probability seems to have replaced aether as "the nominative of the verb 'to undulate'."

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Verbs, Physics

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.110, Cambridge University Press

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• An electron is no more (and no less) hypothetical than a star. Nowadays we count electrons one by one in a Geiger counter, as we count the stars one by one on a photographic plate.

  Arthur Eddington

  Stars, Science, Hypothesis

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.21, Cambridge University Press

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• Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

  Arthur Eddington

  Nature, Stars, Science

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• Don't believe the results of experiments until they're confirmed by theory.

  Arthur Eddington

  Believe, Results, Theory

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• The word reality frightens me.

  Arthur Eddington

  Reality

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• Proof is an idol before which the mathematician tortures himself.

  Arthur Eddington

  Education, Knowledge, Math

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• The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.

  Arthur Eddington

  World, Quests, Four

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures (1927)”, p.26, Cambridge University Press

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• The universe will finally become a ball of radiation, becoming more and more rarified and passing into longer and longer wave-lengths. The longest waves of radiation are Hertzian waves of the kind used in broadcasting. About every 1500 million years this ball of radio waves will double in diameter; and it will go on expanding in geometrical progression for ever. Perhaps then I may describe the end of the physical world as-one stupendous broadcast.

  Arthur Eddington

  Future, Years, Radio Waves

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• Electrical force is defined as something which causes motion of electrical charge; an electrical charge is something which exerts electric force.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Causes, Force

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• The understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.

  Arthur Eddington

  Book, Science, Understanding

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.279, Cambridge University Press

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• On one occasion when [William] Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing-after a pause came the reply, 'Perhaps seven.'

  Arthur Eddington

  Smart, Writing, Science

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• [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.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Thinking, Path

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• What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.

  Arthur Eddington

  May, Sun, Difficult

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• So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.

  Arthur Eddington

  Arrows, Physics, Thrive

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures (1927)”, p.80, Cambridge University Press

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• Probably the simplest hypothesis... is that there may be a slow process of annihilation of matter.

  Arthur Eddington

  May, Matter, Genocide

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• We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind put into nature.

  Arthur Eddington

  Nature, Mind, Found

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• Human life is proverbially uncertain; few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.

  Arthur Eddington

  Life, Math, Statistics

  Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1933). “The nature of the physical world”

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• Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.

  Arthur Eddington

  Shuffling

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Nature of the Physical World: Gifford Lectures (1927)”, p.64, Cambridge University Press

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• For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.

  Arthur Eddington

  Truth, Learning, Appeals

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “The Philosophy of Physical Science: Tarner Lectures (1938)”, p.9, Cambridge University Press

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• 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.

  Arthur Eddington

  Science, Usual, Atoms

  Arthur Eddington (2012). “New Pathways in Science: Messenger Lectures (1934)”, p.34, Cambridge University Press

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• When an investigator has developed a formula which gives a complete representation of the phenomena within a certain range, he may be prone to satisfaction. Would it not be wiser if he should say 'Foiled again! I can find out no more about Nature along this line.'

  Arthur Eddington

  Nature, Science, Giving

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