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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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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
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Electron
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More quotes by Arthur Eddington

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[When thinking about the new relativity and quantum theories] I have felt a homesickness for the paths of physical science where there are ore or less discernible handrails to keep us from the worst morasses of foolishness.
Arthur Eddington
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It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
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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The understanding between a non-technical writer and his reader is that he shall talk more or less like a human being and not like an Act of Parliament. I take it that the aim of such books must be to convey exact thought in inexact language... he can never succeed without the co-operation of the reader.
Arthur Eddington
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You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
Arthur Eddington
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Don't believe the results of experiments until they're confirmed by theory.
Arthur Eddington
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The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.
Arthur Eddington
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The mathematics is not there till we put it there.
Arthur Eddington
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I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.
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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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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Something unknown is doing we don't know what-that is what our theory amounts to.
Arthur Eddington
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A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe. The figures may not be very trustworthy, but I think they give a correct impression.
Arthur Eddington
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Human life is proverbially uncertain few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.
Arthur Eddington
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The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
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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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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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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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.'
Arthur Eddington
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Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of general relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: Who's the third?
Arthur Eddington