Arthur Eddington - Matter Quotes

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The whole subject-matter of exact science consists of pointer readings and similar indications.

Arthur Eddington
It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character. But no one can deny that mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience, and all else is remote inference — inference either intuitive or deliberate.

Arthur Eddington
We can see that, the constant in the law of gravitation being fixed, there may be some upper limit to the amount of matter possible; as more and more matter is added in the distant parts, space curves round and ultimately closes; the process of adding more matter must stop, because there is no more space, and we can only return to the region already dealt with. But there seems nothing to prevent a defect of matter, leaving space unclosed. Some mechanism seems to be needed, whereby either gravitation creates matter, or all the matter in the universe conspires to define a law of gravitation.

Arthur Eddington
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.

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

Arthur Eddington
A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his service. The store is well nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped. There is sufficient in the Sun to maintain its output of heat for 15 billion years.

Arthur Eddington
A scientific writer is placed in a difficulty by his earlier books; either his new book will appear as a rather disjointed addendum to them, or he must perfunctorily go over again a great deal of matter which he has no wish to rewrite.

Arthur Eddington
It is by looking into our own nature that we first discover the failure of the physical universe to be co-extensive with our experience of reality. The "something to which truth matters" must surely have a place in reality what ever definition of reality we may adopt.

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

Arthur Eddington
It is natural that our senses should have developed faculties for perceiving some of these intrinsic distinctions of the possible states of the world around us. I prefer to think of matter and energy, not as agents causing the degrees of curvature of the world, but as parts of our perceptions of the existence of the curvature.

Arthur Eddington
Results of measurements are the subject-matter of physics; and the moral of the theory of relativity is that we can only comprehend what the physical quantities stand for if we first comprehend what they are.

Arthur Eddington
We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.

Arthur Eddington