Arthur Eddington quotes
Arthur Eddington was a British astrophysicist and mathematician renowned for his work on the theory of relativity. His experiments during a 1919 solar eclipse provided key evidence confirming Einstein's predictions. He made significant contributions to our understanding of stars and the universe. Here are 128 of his quotes:
To the pure geometer the radius of curvature is an incidental characteristic - like the grin of the Cheshire cat. To the physicist it is an indispensable characteristic. It would be going too far to say that to the physicist the cat is merely incidental to the grin. Physics is concerned with interrelatedness such as the interrelatedness of cats and grins. In this case the "cat without a grin" and the "grin without a cat" are equally set aside as purely mathematical phantasies.
Arthur Eddington
Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory.
Arthur Eddington
The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance - are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?
Arthur Eddington
The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations - then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation - well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
Arthur Eddington
Spherical space is not very easy to imagine. We have to think of the properties of the surface of a sphere - the two-dimensional case - and try to conceive something similar applied to three-dimensional space. Stationing ourselves at a point let us draw a series of spheres of successively greater radii. The surface of a sphere of radius r should be proportional to r; but in spherical space the areas of the more distant spheres begin to fall below the proper proportion. There is not so much room out there as we expected to find. Ultimately we reach a sphere of biggest possible area, and beyond it the areas begin to decrease. The last sphere of all shrinks to a point - our antipodes. Is there nothing beyond this? Is there a kind of boundary there? There is nothing beyond and yet there is no boundary. On the earth's surface there is nothing beyond our own antipodes but there is no boundary there.
Arthur Eddington
A non-mathematical presentation has necessary limitations; and the reader who wishes to learn how certain exact results follow from Einstein's, or even Newton's, law of gravitation is bound to seek the reasons in a mathematical treatise. ...[T]he geometry of relativity in its perfect harmony expresses a truth... which my bowdlerised version misses.
But the mind is not content to leave scientific Truth in a dry husk of mathematical symbols, and demands that it shall be alloyed with familiar images.
Arthur Eddington
Arthur Eddington
Occupation: British Scientist
Born: December 28, 1882
Died: November 22, 1944
Quotes count: 128
Wikipedia: Arthur Eddington
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