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

More quotes by Arthur Eddington

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The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.
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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 mathematics is not there till we put it there.
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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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It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.
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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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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.
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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.
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What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.
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It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.
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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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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.
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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A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe. The figures may not be very trustworthy, but I think they give a correct impression.
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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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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The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
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Events do not happen they are just there, and we come across them.
Arthur Eddington