Arthur Eddington Quotes

212 Sourced Quotes

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
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