Best 74 quotes of Arthur Eddington on MyQuotes

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

The mathematics is not there till we put it there.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Time is the supreme Law of nature.

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.

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.

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

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.

We have found that where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind put into nature.

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'.

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

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

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.

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.'

[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.

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.

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