Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Whether
Replied
Science
Third
Three
Thirds
True
General
World
Understood
People
Asked
Theory
Allegedly
Understanding
Relativity

More quotes by Arthur Eddington

Image
Human life is proverbially uncertain few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.
Arthur Eddington
Image
[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
Image
It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
Arthur Eddington
Image
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
Image
Something unknown is doing we don't know what-that is what our theory amounts to.
Arthur Eddington
Image
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
Image
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
Image
For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.
Arthur Eddington
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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.
Arthur Eddington
Image
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.
Arthur Eddington
Image
You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
Arthur Eddington
Image
The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
Arthur Eddington
Image
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
Image
Who will observe the observers?
Arthur Eddington
Image
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
Image
We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
Arthur Eddington
Image
The mathematics is not there till we put it there.
Arthur Eddington
Image
The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
Arthur Eddington