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"Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature."
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Arthur EddingtonIf to-day you ask a physicist what he has finally made out the æther o — Arthur Eddington
"If to-day you ask a physicist what he has finally made out the æther or the electron to be, the answer will not be a description in terms of billiard balls or fly-wheels or anything concrete; he will point instead to a number of symbols and a set of mathematical equations which they satisfy. What do the symbols stand for? The mysterious reply is given that physics is indifferent to that; it has no means of probing beneath the symbolism. To understand the phenomena of the physical world it is necessary to know the equations which the symbols obey but not the nature of that which is being symbolised. … this newer outlook has modified the challenge from the material to the spiritual world."
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Arthur Eddington
Arthur Eddington
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Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington was an English astrophysicist and mathematician. 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 honour.
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"We do not argue with the critic who urges that the stars are not hot enough for this process; we tell him to go and find a hotter place."
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Arthur EddingtonQuote
"I think that science would never have achieved much progress if it had always imagined unknown obstacles hidden round every corner. At least we may peer gingerly round the corner, and perhaps we shall find there is nothing very formidable after all."
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Arthur EddingtonQuote
"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"."
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Arthur EddingtonQuote
"A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the sub-atomic energy which, it is known, exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn to release it and use it for his service. The store is well-nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped."
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Arthur EddingtonQuote
"At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star."
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Arthur Eddington