Arthur Eddington Quotes

212 Sourced Quotes

We have certain preconceived ideas about location in space which have come down to us from ape-like ancestors.

Arthur Eddington
The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

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

Arthur Eddington
That queer quantity "infinity" is the very mischief, and no rational physicist should have anything to do with it. Perhaps that is why mathematicians represent it by a sign like a love-knot.

Arthur Eddington
Materialism in its literal sense is long since dead.... It is... belief in the universal dominance of scientific law which is nowadays generally meant by materialism.

Arthur Eddington
In the end what we comprehend about the universe is precisely that which we put into the universe to make it comprehensible.

Arthur Eddington
If there were no matter in the universe, the law of gravitation would fall to the ground.

Arthur Eddington
Scientific theories have blundered no doubt in the past; they blunder no doubt today; yet we cannot doubt that along with the error there come gleams of a truth for which the human mind is impelled to strive.

Arthur Eddington
We have discovered that it is actually an aid in the search for knowledge to understand the nature of the knowledge we seek.

Arthur Eddington
We can scarcely describe the beauty of a landscape as non-existent when there is no conscious being to witness it; but it is through consciousness that we can attribute a meaning to it.

Arthur Eddington
Our model of Nature... should be like an engine with movable parts. We need not fix the position of any one lever; that is to be adjusted from time to time as the latest observations indicate. The aim of the theorist is to know the train of wheels which the lever sets in motion — that binding of the parts which is the soul of the engine.

Arthur Eddington
We have not to discover the properties of a thing which we have recognized in nature, but to discover how to recognize in nature a thing whose properties we have assigned.

Arthur Eddington
I would rather believe in ghosts than in hyperbolic meteors.

Arthur Eddington
We walk the stage of life, performers of a drama for the benefit of the cosmic spectator. As the scene proceeds, he notices that the actors are growing smaller and the action quicker. When the last act opens the curtain rises on midgets rushing through their parts at frantic speed.

Arthur Eddington
Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate One thing at least is certain, LIGHT has WEIGHT One thing is certain, and the rest debate — Light-rays, when near the Sun, DO NOT GO STRAIGHT.

Arthur Eddington
It is true that the whole scientific inquiry starts from the familiar world and in the end it must return to the familiar world; but the part of the journey over which the physicist has charge is in foreign territory.

Arthur Eddington
If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth. So too in religion we are repelled by that confident theological doctrine... but we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world.

Arthur Eddington
In any attempt to bridge the domains of experience belonging to the spiritual and physical sides of nature, time occupies the key position.

Arthur Eddington
Consciousness is not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions.... there is another outlook than the scientific one, because in practice a more transcendental outlook is almost universally admitted.... who does not prize these moments that reveal to us the poetry of existence?

Arthur Eddington
In science we sometimes have convictions as to the right solution of a problem which we cherish but cannot justify; we are influenced by some innate sense of the fitness of things.

Arthur Eddington
The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions... For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.

Arthur Eddington
If indeed, the subatomic energy in the stars is being freely used to maintain their great furnaces, it seems to bring a little nearer to fulfillment our dream of controlling this latent power for the well-being of the human race — or for its suicide.

Arthur Eddington
Philosophically the notion of a beginning of Nature is repugnant to me.

Arthur Eddington
There can be no unique probability attached to any event or behavior: we can only speak of "probability in the light of certain given information", and the probability alters according to the extent of the information.

Arthur Eddington
Something unknown is doing we don't know what.

Arthur Eddington