Arthur Stanley Eddington: Trending quotes (page 3)

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

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929), IV, p.40

Problem , Sense

“Science has an important part to play in our everyday existence, and there is far too much neglect of science; but its intention is to supplement not to supplant the familiar outlook.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929), VIII, p.83

Science , Parting

“I think it is not irreligion but a tidiness of mind, which rebels against the idea of permeating scientific research with a religious implication.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929), II, p.24-25

Idea , Thinking

“He arrives at two generalisations: 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.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

The Philosophy of Physical Science (1938)
Context: 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 systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations: 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.
In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation; for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science.
An onlooker may object that the first generalisation is wrong. "There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them." The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. "Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, what my net can't catch isn't fish." Or — to translate the analogy — "If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah!"

Sea

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

Arthur Stanley Eddington
Travel , Water

“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.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Source: The Nature of the Physical World

Nature , Light , Science

“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.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

The Expanding Universe. (1933) Ch. IV The Universe and the Atom

Cats , Mathematics

“Consciousness is not wholly, nor even primarily a device for receiving sense-impressions. …there is another outlook than the scientific one, because in practice a more transcendental outlook is almost universally admitted. …who does not prize these moments that reveal to us the poetry of existence?”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Sense , Universe

“[Relativist] Rel. There is a well-known proposition of Euclid which states that "Any two sides of a triangle are together greater than the third side." Can either of you tell me whether nowadays there is good reason to believe that this proposition is true?
[Pure Mathematician] Math. For my part, I am quite unable to say whether the proposition is true or not. I can deduce it by trustworthy reasoning from certain other propositions or axioms, which are supposed to be still more elementary. If these axioms are true, the proposition is true; if the axioms are not true, the proposition is not true universally. Whether the axioms are true or not I cannot say, and it is outside my province to consider.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

Universe , Parting

“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.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

As quoted in A Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (1991) by Alan L. Mackay, p. 79

Thinking , Learning

“We have to build the spiritual world out of symbols taken from our own personality, as we build the scientific world out of the symbols of the mathematician.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. VIII, p.82

World , Personality

“Study of the scientific world cannot prescribe the orientation of something which is excluded from the scientific world.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

IV, p.43
Science and the Unseen World (1929)

World , Study

“There is another passage from the Old Testament that comes nearer to my own sympathies—"And behold the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. …And behold there came a voice unto him, and said. What doest thou here, Elijah?"”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Mountain , Strong

“The desire for truth so prominent in the quest of science, a reaching out of the spirit from its isolation to something beyond, a response to beauty in nature and art, an Inner Light of conviction and guidance—are these as much a part of our being as our sensitivity to sense impressions?”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Source: Science and the Unseen World (1929), Ch. IV, p.42-43

Truth , Beauty , Art , Nature

“Physics has in the main contented itself with studying the abridged edition of the book of nature.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

"A Generalization of Weyl's Theory of the Electromagnetic and Gravitational Fields" in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London A99 (1921), p. 108

Books , Nature , Study

“Motion with respect to the universal ocean of aether eludes us. We say, "Let V be the velocity of a body through the aether", and form the various electromagnetic equations in which V is scattered liberally. Then we insert the observed values, and try to eliminate everything which is unknown except V. The solution goes on famously; but just as we have got rid of all the other unknowns, behold! V disappears as well, and we are left with the indisputable but irritating conclusion —
::: 0 = 0
This is a favourite device that mathematical equations resort to, when we propound stupid questions.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Source: The Nature of the Physical World (1928), Ch. 2 Relativity <!-- p. 30 -->

Stupidity , Mathematics , Question , Universe

“We have travelled far from the standpoint which identifies the real with the concrete. Even the older philosophy found it necessary to admit exceptions; for example, time must be admitted to be real, although no one could attribute to it a concrete nature.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

III, p.33
Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Travel , Nature , Time

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

Arthur Stanley Eddington

New Pathways in Science (1935) Ch. V Indeterminacy and Quantum Theory, p. 105

Perfection

“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.”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

As quoted in "Annals of Science II-DNA" by Horace Freeland Judson in The New Yorker (4 December 1978), p. 132

Confidence

“The essential difference, which we meet in entering the realm of spirit and mind, seems to hang round the word "Ought."”

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Science and the Unseen World (1929)