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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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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
Math
Outset
Physics
Determinism
Mathematics
Predicting
Deals
Idolatry
Modern
Trap
Impossible
Traps
Perfect
Probability
Anything
Mathematical
Probabilities

More quotes by 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'.
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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'.
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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.
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Events do not happen they are just there, and we come across them.
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The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
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You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
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Do not put too much confidence in experimental results until they have been confirmed by theory.
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The helium which we handle must have been put together at some time and some place. We do not argue with the critic who urges that the stars are not hot enough for this process we tell him to go and find a hotter place.
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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.
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An electron is no more (and no less) hypothetical than a star. Nowadays we count electrons one by one in a Geiger counter, as we count the stars one by one on a photographic plate.
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An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.
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What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.
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For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.
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Who will observe the observers?
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Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.
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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 quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
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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.
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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 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.
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