Quote

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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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
Giving
Lines
Developed
Investigator
Would
Within
Range
Investigators
Natural
Satisfaction
Prone
Science
Complete
Phenomena
Nature
Line
Formula
Certain
Along
Formulas
May
Gives
Representation
Find
Theory
Wiser
Foiled

More quotes by 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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You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
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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We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
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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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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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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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
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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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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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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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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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It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
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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[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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We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about 'and'.
Arthur Eddington
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The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.
Arthur Eddington
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The mathematics is not there till we put it there.
Arthur Eddington
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It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control. It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.
Arthur Eddington
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Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.
Arthur Eddington