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It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.

Arthur Eddington

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Arthur Eddington
Age: 61 †
Born: 1882
Born: December 28
Died: 1944
Died: November 22
Astronomer
Astrophysicist
Philosopher
Physicist
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
Sir Arthur Eddington
Results
Overmuch
Also
Observational
Good
Confirmed
Statistics
Rule
Confidence
Forward
Theory

More quotes by Arthur Eddington

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Whatever else there may be in our nature, responsibility toward truth is one of its attributes.
Arthur Eddington
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When an investigator has developed a formula which gives a complete representation of the phenomena within a certain range, he may be prone to satisfaction. Would it not be wiser if he should say 'Foiled again! I can find out no more about Nature along this line.'
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You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
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Human life is proverbially uncertain few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.
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It cannot be denied that for a society which has to create scarcity to save its members from starvation, to whom abundance spells disaster, and to whom unlimited energy means unlimited power for war and destruction, there is an ominous cloud in the distance though at present it be no bigger than a man's hand.
Arthur Eddington
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Unless the structure of the nucleus has a surprise in store for us, the conclusion seems plain — there is nothing in the whole system of laws of physics that cannot be deduced unambiguously from epistemological considerations.
Arthur Eddington
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What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.
Arthur Eddington
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It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.
Arthur Eddington
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In the most modern theories of physics probability seems to have replaced aether as the nominative of the verb 'to undulate'.
Arthur Eddington
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There was a time when we wanted to be told what an electron is. The question was never answered. No familiar conceptions can be woven around the electron it belongs to the waiting list.
Arthur Eddington
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If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
Arthur Eddington
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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
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But it is necessary to insist more strongly than usual that what I am putting before you is a model-the Bohr model atom-because later I shall take you to a profounder level of representation in which the electron instead of being confined to a particular locality is distributed in a sort of probability haze all over the atom.
Arthur Eddington
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Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.
Arthur Eddington
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There once was a brainy baboon, Who always breathed down a bassoon, For he said, It appears That in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune.
Arthur Eddington
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We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind put into nature.
Arthur Eddington
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Something unknown is doing we don't know what-that is what our theory amounts to.
Arthur Eddington
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What we makes of the world must be largely dependent on the sense-organs that we happen to possess. How the world must have changed since the man came to rely on his eyes rather than his nose.
Arthur Eddington
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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
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It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
Arthur Eddington