Arthur Eddington Quotations

We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.

Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn't.

Probably the simplest hypothesis... is that there may be a slow process of annihilation of matter.

It is sound judgment to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.

It is impossible to trap modern physics into predicting anything with perfect determinism because it deals with probabilities from the outset.

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'.

The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.

If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.

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.

Something unknown is doing we don't know what.

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.

We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature. We have found a strange foot-print on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the foot-print. And Lo! it is our own.

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.

If your theory is found to be against the second law of theromodynamics, I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because 'two' is 'one and one.' We forget that we still have to make a study of 'and.'

The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.

Proof is an idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.

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.

[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.

The electron, as it leaves the atom, crystallises out of Schrödinger's mist like a genie emerging from his bottle.

In Einstein's theory of relativity the observer is a man who sets out in quest of truth armed with a measuring-rod. In quantum theory he sets out with a sieve.

Falling in love is one of the activities forbidden that tiresome person, the consistently reasonable man.

The word reality frightens me.

I am aware that many critics consider the conditions in the stars not sufficiently extreme . . . the stars are not hot enough. The critics lay themselves open to an obvious retort: we tell them to go and find a hotter place.

The universe will finally become a ball of radiation, becoming more and more rarified and passing into longer and longer wave-lengths. The longest waves of radiation are Hertzian waves of the kind used in broadcasting. About every 1500 million years this ball of radio waves will double in diameter; and it will go on expanding in geometrical progression for ever. Perhaps then I may describe the end of the physical world as-one stupendous broadcast.

Never accept a fact until it has been verified by theory.

But it is necessary to insist more strongly than usual that what I am putting before you is a model-the Bohr model atom-because later I shall take you to a profounder level of representation in which the electron instead of being confined to a particular locality is distributed in a sort of probability haze all over the atom.

The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.

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.

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.

So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.

Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematize what it reveals. He arrives at two generalizations: (1) No sea-creature is less than two inches long. (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it.

There is no space without aether, and no aether which does not occupy space.

Human life is proverbially uncertain; few things are more certain than the solvency of a life-insurance company.

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.

Proof is an idol before which the mathematician tortures himself.

I believe there are 15, 747, 724, 136, 275, 002, 577, 605, 653, 961, 181, 555, 468, 044, 717, 914, 527, 116, 709, 366, 231, 425, 076, 185, 631, 031, 296 protons in the universe and the same number of electrons.

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.

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.

Electrical force is defined as something which causes motion of electrical charge; an electrical charge is something which exerts electric force.

Events do not happen; they are just there, and we come across them.

There is only one law of Nature-the second law of thermodynamics-which recognises a distinction between past and future more profound than the difference of plus and minus. It stands aloof from all the rest. ... It opens up a new province of knowledge, namely, the study of organisation; and it is in connection with organisation that a direction of time-flow and a distinction between doing and undoing appears for the first time.

Man is slightly nearer to the atom than to the star. ... From his central position man can survey the grandest works of Nature with the astronomer, or the minutest works with the physicist. ... [K]nowledge of the stars leads through the atom; and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.

Something unknown is doing we don't know what-that is what our theory amounts to.

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.

Unless the structure of the nucleus has a surprise in store for us, the conclusion seems plain-there is nothing in the whole system if laws of physics that cannot be deduced unambiguously from epistemological considerations. An intelligence, unacquainted with our universe, but acquainted with the system of thought by which the human mind interprets to itself the contents of its sensory experience, and should be able to attain all the knowledge of physics that we have attained by experiment.

On one occasion when [William] Smart found him engrossed with his fundamental theory, he asked Eddington how many people he thought would understand what he was writing-after a pause came the reply, 'Perhaps seven.'

Schrodinger's wave-mechanics is not a physical theory but a dodge-and a very good dodge too.

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.'

Our model of Nature should not be like a building-a handsome structure for the populace to admire, until in the course of time some one takes away a corner stone and the edifice comes toppling down. It should be like an engine with movable parts. We need not fix the position of any one lever; that is to be adjusted from time to time as the latest observations indicate. The aim of the theorist is to know the train of wheels which the lever sets in motion-that binding of the parts which is the soul of the engine.

A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the subatomic energy which, it is known exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn how to release it and use it for his service. The store is well nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped. There is sufficient in the Sun to maintain its output of heat for 15 billion years.

In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realization that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.

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.

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.

Life would be stunted and narrow if we could feel no significance in the world around us beyond that which can be weighed and measured with the tools of the physicist or described by the metrical symbols of the mathematician.

Do not put too much confidence in experimental results until they have been confirmed by theory.

For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal.

It is a primitive form of thought that things exist or do not exist.

Don't believe the results of experiments until they're confirmed by theory.

What is possible in the Cavendish Laboratory may not be too difficult in the sun.

I don't believe any experiment until it is confirmed by theory. I find this is a witty inversion of "conventional" wisdom.

Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me ... I should like to find a genuine loophole.

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.

If your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

In any attempt to bridge the domains of experience belonging to the spiritual and physical sides of nature, time occupies the key position.

Who will observe the observers?

If I let my fingers wander idly over the keys of a typewriter it might happen that my screed made an intelligible sentence. If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters they might write all the books in the British Museum. The chance of their doing so is decidedly more favourable than the chance of the molecules returning to one half of the vessel.

To the pure geometer the radius of curvature is an incidental characteristic - like the grin of the Cheshire cat. To the physicist it is an indispensable characteristic. It would be going too far to say that to the physicist the cat is merely incidental to the grin. Physics is concerned with interrelatedness such as the interrelatedness of cats and grins. In this case the "cat without a grin" and the "grin without a cat" are equally set aside as purely mathematical phantasies.

Science is one thing, wisdom is another. Science is an edged tool, with which men play like children, and cut their own fingers.

In the most modern theories of physics probability seems to have replaced aether as "the nominative of the verb 'to undulate'."

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?"

Observation and theory get on best when they are mixed together, both helping one another in the pursuit of truth. It is a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in a theory until it has been confirmed by observation. I hope I shall not shock the experimental physicists too much if I add that it is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they have been confirmed by theory.

Time is the supreme Law of nature.

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.

The pursuit of truth in science transcends national boundaries. It takes us beyond hatred and anger and fear. It is the best of us.

We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.

It is reasonable to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.

You cannot disturb the tiniest petal of a flower without the troubling of a distant star.

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.

If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations-then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation-well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.

An ocean traveler has even more vividly the impression that the ocean is made of waves than that it is made of water.

Whatever else there may be in our nature, responsibility toward truth is one of its attributes.

The idea of a universal mind or Logos would be, I think, a fairly plausible inference from the present state of scientific theory.