Arthur Eddington Quotes

212 Sourced Quotes

Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.

Arthur Eddington
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'.

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

Arthur Eddington
Theological or anti-theological argument to prove or disprove the existence of a deity seems to me to occupy itself largely with skating among the difficulties caused by our making a fetish of this word [existence].

Arthur Eddington
Nowadays whenever enthusiasts meet together to discuss theoretical physics the talk sooner or later turns in a certain direction. You leave them conversing on their special problems or the latest discoveries; but return after an hour and it is any odds that they will have reached an allengrossing topic - the desperate state of their ignorance.

Arthur Eddington
An electron would not know how large it ought to be unless there existed independent lengths in space for it to measure itself against.

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

Arthur Eddington
In science and in most philosophies spoken and printed words are treated, not only as immediate sensory data of our own consciousness, but as communicating to us data existing in other consciousnesses.

Arthur Eddington
With this brief glance at the scenery that we pass we shall plunge into the deep interior [of a star] - where the eye cannot penetrate, but where it is yet possible by scientific reasoning to learn a great deal about the conditions.

Arthur Eddington
The recent tendencies of science do... take us to an eminence from which we can look down into the deep waters of philosophy; and if I rashly plunge into them, it is not because I have confidence in my powers of swimming, but to try to show that the water is really deep.

Arthur Eddington
The velocity of light plays a conspicuous part in the relativity theory, and it is of importance to understand what is the property associated with it which makes it fundamental. The fact that the velocity of light is the same for all observers is a consequence rather than a cause of its pre-eminent character.

Arthur Eddington
With fuller knowledge we should sweep away the references to probability and substitute the exact facts.

Arthur Eddington
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
It is quite commonly said that scientific theories about the world are neither true nor false but merely convenient or inconvenient.

Arthur Eddington
Ninety-nine people out of a hundred have not seriously considered what they mean by the term "exist" nor how a thing qualifies itself to be labelled real.

Arthur Eddington
Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature.

Arthur Eddington
We have travelled far from the standpoint which identifies the real with the concrete. Even the older philosophy found it necessary to admit exceptions; for example, time must be admitted to be real, although no one could attribute to it a concrete nature.

Arthur Eddington
What I may attempt is to dispel the feeling that in using the eye of the body or the eye of the soul, and incorporating what is thereby revealed in our conception of reality, we are doing something irrational and disobeying the leading of truth which as scientists we are pledged to serve.

Arthur Eddington
If the kind of controversy which so often springs up between modernism and traditionalism in religion were applied to more commonplace affairs of life we might see some strange results.... It arises, let us say, from a passage in an obituary notice which mentions that the deceased had loved to watch the sunsets from his peaceful country home..... it is forgotten that what the deceased man looked out for each evening was an experience and not a creed.

Arthur Eddington
The mind-stuff is not spread in space and time. But we must presume that in some other way or aspect it can be differentiated into parts. Only here and there does it arise to the level of consciousness, but from such islands proceeds all knowledge. The latter includes our knowledge of the physical world.

Arthur Eddington
Our method of making an atom work is to knock it about; and if it does not do what we want, knock it still harder.

Arthur Eddington
Matter and all else that is in the physical world have been reduced to a shadowy symbolism.

Arthur Eddington
I do not think that the whole purpose of the Creation has been staked on the one planet where we live; and in the long run we cannot deem ourselves the only race that has been or will be gifted with the mystery of consciousness.

Arthur Eddington
There are no purely observational facts about the heavenly bodies. Astronomical measurements are, without exception, measurements of phenomena occurring in a terrestrial observatory or station; it is only by theory that they are translated into knowledge of a universe outside.

Arthur Eddington
If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum.

Arthur Eddington