"For ten years we have had to divide modern science into two compartments: we have one set of beliefs in the classical compartment and another set of… - Arthur Eddington

"For ten years we have had to divide modern science into two compartments: we have one set of beliefs in the classical compartment and another set of beliefs in the quantum compartment. Unfortunately, our compartments are not watertight. We must, of course, look forward to an ultimate reconstruction of our conceptions of the physical world which will embrace both the classical laws and the quantum laws in harmonious association. There are still some who think that the reconciliation will be effected by a development of classical conceptions. But the physicists of what I may call "the Copenhagen school" believe that the reconstruction has to start at the other end, and that in the quantum phenomena we are getting down to a more intimate contact with Nature’s way of working than in the coarse-grained experience which has furnished the classical laws."

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About Arthur Eddington

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.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Native Name: sir Arthur Stanley Eddington
Alternative Names: Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington Sir Arthur Eddington
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Additional quotes by Arthur Eddington

That part of our conscious experience representable by physical symbols ought not to claim to be the whole. As a conscious being you are not one of my symbols; your domain is not circumscribed by my spatial measurements. If, like Hamlet, you count yourself king of an infinite space, I do not challenge your sovereignty. I only invite attention to certain disquieting rumours which have arisen as to the state of Your Majesty's nutshell.

If our so-called facts are changing shadows, they are shadows cast by the light of constant truth. So too in religion we are repelled by that confident theological doctrine … but we need not turn aside from the measure of light that comes into our experience showing us a Way through the unseen world.

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The law that entropy always increases, holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. 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.

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