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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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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
Plates
Hypothesis
Nowadays
Electron
Count
Hypothetical
Star
Electrons
Stars
Photographic
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Plate
Science
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More quotes by 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.
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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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The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrodinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.
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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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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
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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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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.
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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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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?
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Human life is proverbially uncertain few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.
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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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We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
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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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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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.
Arthur Eddington
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Time is the supreme Law of nature.
Arthur Eddington
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Who will observe the observers?
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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Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.
Arthur Eddington
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Don't believe the results of experiments until they're confirmed by theory.
Arthur Eddington