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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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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
Worst
Homesickness
Path
Relativity
Less
Foolishness
Science
Paths
Felt
Theories
Keep
Quantum
Thinking
Physical
Theory
Discernible

More quotes by Arthur Eddington

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Time is the supreme Law of nature.
Arthur Eddington
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Unless the structure of the nucleus has a surprise in store for us, the conclusion seems plain — there is nothing in the whole system of laws of physics that cannot be deduced unambiguously from epistemological considerations.
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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.
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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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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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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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If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
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 mathematics is not there till we put it there.
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 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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An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.
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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The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
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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Events do not happen they are just there, and we come across them.
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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We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
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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Our ultimate analysis of space leads us not to a here and a there, but to an extension such as that which relates here and there. To put the conclusion rather crudely-space is not a lot of points close together it is a lot of distances interlocked.
Arthur Eddington