We have been pulling at the wrong end of the tangle, which has to be unravelled by a different approach. But after a general agreement with observati… - Arthur Eddington
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We have been pulling at the wrong end of the tangle, which has to be unravelled by a different approach. But after a general agreement with observation is established, and the tangle begins to loosen, we should always make ready for the next knot.
Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington OM FRS (28 December 1882 – 22 November 1944) was an English astronomer, physicist, and mathematician. He was also a philosopher of science and a populariser of science. The Eddington limit, the natural limit to the luminosity of stars, or the radiation generated by accretion onto a compact object, is named in his honour.
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Wikimedia Commons, George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. (Public domain / CC0)
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sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
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Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
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Sir Arthur Eddington
Portrait from Wikimedia Commons. Credit: George Grantham Bain Collection, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.. Used under Public domain / CC0. Processed and styled by Quotewise.
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The essential difference, which we meet in entering the realm of spirit and mind, seems to hang round the word "Ought."
Physical science comes nearest to that complete system of exact knowledge which all sciences have before them as an ideal. Some fall far short of it. The physicist who inveighs against the lack of coherence and the indefiniteness of theological theories, will probably speak not much less harshly of the theories of biology and psychology. They also fail to come up to his standard of methodology. On the other side of him stands an even superior being — the pure mathematician — who has no high opinion of the methods of deduction used in physics, and does not hide his disapproval of the laxity of what is accepted as proof in physical science. And yet somehow knowledge grows in all these branches. Wherever a way opens we are impelled to seek by the only methods that can be devised for that particular opening, not over-rating the security of our finding, but conscious that in this activity of mind we are obeying the light that is in our nature.
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To those who have any intimate acquaintance with the laws of chemistry and physics the suggestion that the spiritual world could be ruled by laws of allied character is as preposterous as the suggestion that a nation could be ruled by laws like the laws of grammar.