Arthur Eddington Quotes

Mind is the first and most direct thing in our experience; all else is remote inference.

In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions.

The influence of the sensory equipment with which we observe, and the intellectual equipment with which we formulate the results of observation as knowledge, is so far reaching that by itself it decides the number of particles into which matter in the universe appears to be divided.

[T]he atoms of all elements are built of atoms bound together... the interior of a star seems as likely a place as any for the evolution to have occurred... a great amount of energy must have been set free; in a star a vast amount of energy is being set free which is hitherto unaccounted for. You may draw a conclusion if you like.

The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

What is the source of heat which the sun and the stars are continually squandering? The answer given is almost unanimous... the gravitational energy converted as the star steadily contracts. ...Lord Kelvin showed that this hypothesis, due to Helmholtz, necessarily dates the birth of the sun about 20,000,000 years ago; and he made strenuous efforts to induce geologists and biologists to accommodate... But... outrageous violations of this limit have prevailed. ...Sir 's theory of the earth-moon system, to the present Lord Raleigh's ...age of terrestrial rocks from occluded helium, and to all modern discussions of the statistical equilibrium of the stellar system. No one seems to have any hesitation... in carrying back the history of the earth long before the supposed date of formation of the solar system... in some cases... this appears... justified by experimental evidence... difficult to dispute. Lord Kelvin's date of the creation of the sun is treated with no more respect than Archbishop Ussher's.

We know the prodigality of Nature. How many acorns are scattered for one that grows to an oak? And need she be more careful of her stars than of her acorns? If indeed she has no grander aim than to provide a home for her greatest experiment, Man, it would be just like her methods to scatter a million stars whereof one might haply achieve her purpose.

A star is drawing on some vast reservoir of energy by means unknown to us. This reservoir can scarcely be other than the sub-atomic energy which, it is known, exists abundantly in all matter; we sometimes dream that man will one day learn to release it and use it for his service. The store is well-nigh inexhaustible, if only it could be tapped.

We are no longer tempted to condemn the spiritual aspects of our nature as illusory because of their lack of concreteness.

The problem of experiences is not limited to the interpretation of sense-impressions.

If in a community of the blind one man suddenly received the gift of sight, he would have much to tell which would not be at all scientific.

The epithet “revolutionary” is usually reserved for two great modern developments – the Relativity Theory and the Quantum Theory. These are not merely new discoveries as to the content of the world; they involve changes in our mode of thought about the world.

To the question whether I would admit that the cause of the decision of the atom has something in common with the cause of the decision of the brain, I would simply answer that there is no cause. In the case of the brain I have a deeper insight into the decision; this insight exhibits it as volition, i.e. something outside causality.

It is the reciprocity of these appearances — that each party should think the other has contracted — that is so difficult to realise. Here is a paradox beyond even the imagination of Dean Swift. Gulliver regarded the Lilliputians as a race of dwarfs; and the Lilliputians regarded Gulliver as a giant. That is natural. If the Lilliputians had appeared dwarfs to Gulliver, and Gulliver had appeared a dwarf to the Lilliputians — but no! that is too absurd for fiction, and is an idea only to be found in the sober pages of science. … It is not only in space but in time that these strange variations occur. If we observed the aviator carefully we should infer that he was unusually slow in his movements; and events in the conveyance moving with him would be similarly retarded — as though time had forgotten to go on. His cigar lasts twice as long as one of ours. … But here again reciprocity comes in, because in the aviator's opinion it is we who are travelling at 161,000 miles a second past him; and when he has made all allowances, he finds that it is we who are sluggish. Our cigar lasts twice as long as his.

Probably the greatest need of stellar astronomy... in order to make sure that our theoretical deductions are starting on the right lines, is some means of measuring the apparent angular diameters of stars. At present we can calculate them approximately from theory, but there is no observational check. ...If the direct measurement ...could be made with any accuracy it would make a wonderfully rapid advance in our knowledge. The prospects... are now... hopeful. ...[W]ork is being carried out by interferometer methods with the 100-in. reflector at Mt. Wilson, and the results are promising. At present the method has been applied only to measuring the separation of close s... Although the great mirror is used for convenience, the interferometer method does not in principle require great apertures, but rather two small apertures widely separated, as in a range-finder.