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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
Science
Counter
Plates
Hypothesis
Nowadays
Electron
Count
Hypothetical
Star
Electrons
Stars
Photographic
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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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Who will observe the observers?
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The mathematics is not there till we put it there.
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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.'
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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.
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The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.
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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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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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We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
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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.
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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.
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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 quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
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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.
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Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate. One thing at least is certain, light has weight. One thing is certain and the rest debate. Light rays, when near the Sun, do not go straight.
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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An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.
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Something unknown is doing we don't know what-that is what our theory amounts to.
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If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
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For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.
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