Arthur Eddington - Science Quotes

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

Arthur Eddington
Science aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace experience.

Arthur Eddington
I have said that the science of the visible universe starts with a determination to use our eyes; but that does not mean that the primary use of the eye is for advancing science.

Arthur Eddington
In science as in religion the truth shines ahead as a beacon showing us the path; we do not ask to attain it; it is better far that we be permitted to seek.

Arthur Eddington
Unless science is to degenerate into idle guessing, the test of value of any theory must be whether it expresses with as little redundancy as possible the facts which it intended to cover.

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
We need scarcely add that the contemplation in natural science of a wider domain than the actual leads to a far better understanding of the actual.

Arthur Eddington
Where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature.

Arthur Eddington
To imagine that Newton's great scientific reputation is tossing up and down in these latter-day revolutions is to confuse science with omniscience.

Arthur Eddington
It is probably true that the recent changes of scientific thought remove some of the obstacles to a reconciliation of religion with science; but this must be carefully distinguished from any proposal to base religion on scientific discovery. For my own part I am wholly opposed to any such attempt.

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
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.

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
From the point of view of philosophy of science the conception associated with entropy must I think be ranked as the greatest contribution of the nineteenth century to scientific thought.

Arthur Eddington
You will understand the true spirit neither of science nor of religion unless seeking is placed in the forefront.

Arthur Eddington
Never mind what two tons refers to. What is it? How has it entered in so definite a way into our exprerience? Two tons is the reading of the pointer when the elephant was placed on a weighing machine. Let us pass on. … And so we see that the poetry fades out of the problem, and by the time the serious application of exact science begins we are left only with pointer readings.

Arthur Eddington
The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?

Arthur Eddington
The exploration of the external world by the methods of physical science leads not to a concrete reality but to a shadow world of symbols, beneath which those methods are unadapted for penetrating.

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

Arthur Eddington
In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it.... The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.

Arthur Eddington
Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers.

Arthur Eddington
Science has an important part to play in our everyday existence, and there is far too much neglect of science; but its intention is to supplement not to supplant the familiar outlook.

Arthur Eddington