“The reality of the 'Maunder Minimum' and its implications of basic solar change may be but one more defeat in our long and losing battle to keep the sun perfect, or, if not perfect, constant, and if inconstant, regular. Why we think that sun should be any of these when other stars are not is more a question for social than for physical science.”

— John A. Eddy

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John A. Eddy 12

American astronomer 1931–2009

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“Regarding the claims of Maunder and Sporer: "I started by trying to make it go away, mostly because of a prejudice about sun-weather relationships, and what I thought was true about the sun. In time I realized that there was a more profound and philosophical message in the Maunder Minimum: that people want the Sun to be more constant and regular than perhaps it is."”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: Interview with Jack Eddy, April 21, 1999: In Michigan by phone, conducted by Spencer Weart http://www.agu.org/history/sv/solar/eddy_int.html

“It has long been though that the sun is a constant star of regular and repeatable behavior. Measurements of the radiative output, or solar constant, seem to justify the first assumption, and the record of periodicity in sunspot numbers is taken as evidence of the second. Both records, however, sample only the most recent history of the sun.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: Eddy, J.A., "The Maunder Minimum", Science 18 June 1976: Vol. 192. no. 4245, pp. 1189 - 1202 http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/192/4245/1189, PDF Copy http://bill.srnr.arizona.edu/classes/182h/Climate/Solar/Maunder%20Minimum.pdf

“It would seem that Maunder and Sporer were right and that most of the rest of us have been wrong. As is often the case in the onrush of modern science, we had too quickly forgotten the past, forgotten the less-than-perfect pedigree of the sunspot cycle and the fact that it too once came as a surprise. We had adopted a kind of solar uniformitarianism, contending that the modern behavior of the sun represented the normal behavior of the sun over a much longer span of time.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: "The Case of the Missing Sunspots"; Scientific American, May 1977, volume 236, issue 5, pages 80-92

“We had adopted a kind of solar uniformitarianism," solar physicist John (Jack) Eddy suggested in retrospect. "As people and as scientists we have always wanted the Sun to be better than other stars and better than it really is.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: Changing Sun, Changing Climate? by Spencer Weart http://www.aip.org/history/climate/solar.htm#M_27_

“When we have observed the Sun most intensively, its behavior may have been unusually regular and benign.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

Source: The Sun: A Biography by David Whitehouse, page 225.

“These [binary stars] may serve another very important end…. Several stars of the first magnitude have been observed or suspected to have a proper motion; hence we may surmise that our sun, with all its planets and comets, may also have a motion towards some particular point of the heavens…. If this surmise should have any foundation, it will show itself in a series of some years in a kind of systematical parallax, or change due to the motion of the whole solar system.”

William Herschel (1738–1822) German-born British astronomer, technical expert, and composer

Source: Sir William Herschel: His Life and Works (1880), Ch.4 "Life and Works" quote from "Researches on the Motion of the Sun and of the Solar System in Space" (1782), p. 149

“Apart from life and thought, there is no reason to regard one form of material distribution as in any respect superior to another. A solar system may be more interesting than its parent nebula; it may be more beautiful. But if there be none to unravel its intricacies or admire its splendours, in what respect is it better? Its constituent atoms are more definitely grouped, the groups move in assignable orbits; but why should the process by which these results have been achieved be regarded as other than one of purposeless change super-induced upon meaningless uniformity?”

Arthur James Balfour (1848–1930) British Conservative politician and statesman

Theism and humanism

“Life's missed opportunities, at the end, may seem more poignant to us than those we embraced — because in our imagination they have a perfection that reality can never rival.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Review http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-sleepy-time-gal-2002 of The Sleepy Time Gal (22 November 2002)
Reviews, Three-and-a-half star reviews

“It's all about the sun. Just take a look at the picture above and notice just how small earth is compared to the sun, or even a large solar flare. Anybody whom thinks the human race has more effect on our global energy balance than an active sun does is just deluding themselves.”

Anthony Watts (1958) American television meteorologist

Scientists Predict Large Solar Cycle Coming http://wattsupwiththat.com/2006/12/23/scientists-predict-large-solar-cycle-coming/, wattsupwiththat.com, December 23, 2006.
2006

“I have reexamined the contemporary reports and new evidence which has come to light since Maunder's time and conclude that this 70-year period was indeed a time when solar activity all but stopped. This behavior is wholly unlike the modern behavior of the sun which we have come to accept as normal, and the consequences for solar and terrestrial physics seem to me profound.”

John A. Eddy (1931–2009) American astronomer

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