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

More quotes by 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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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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Do not put too much confidence in experimental results until they have been confirmed by theory.
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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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
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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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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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We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
Arthur Eddington
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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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You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.
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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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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It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
Arthur Eddington
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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.
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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Time is the supreme Law of nature.
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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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
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Events do not happen they are just there, and we come across them.
Arthur Eddington