Frases de Arthur Stanley Eddington

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Respuesta cuando se le preguntó en 1919 si era cierto que sólo tres personas del mundo comprendían la teoría general de la Relatividad"
Atribuidas
Fuente: Citado por Brian Stableford en Science Fact and Science Fiction: An Encyclopedia (2006), 150

Sobre la segunda ley de la termodinámica.
Fuente: The Nature of the Physical World (1927).

Sobre la naturaleza cuántica del electrón.
Fuente: Gifford Lectures (1927), The Nature of the Physical World (1928), p. 199.

Fuente: The Nature of the Physical World (Gifford Lectures, 1927), Cambridge University Press, Londres, 1930 , p. 276.

Fuente: Nuevos senderos de la Ciencia (Messenger Lectures, 1934), Edición de M. Masriera, Montaner y Simón, Barcelona, 1945, p. 343

Fuente: Stars and Atoms (1928, 2007), Lecture 1. 9.

Sobre la extraordinaria coincidencia entre las cargas del protón y el electrón, dos partículas que pertenecen a distintas familias, pero cuyas cargas eléctricas se neutralizan entre sí.
Fuente: The Philosophy of Physical Science (1939), Tamer Lectures (1938), 170.

Fuente: Nuevos senderos en la Ciencia, Messenger Lectures (1934). 1935, 21.

Science and the Unseen World (1929), IX, p.88

Science and the Unseen World (1929)
Contexto: The scientific answer is relevant so far as concerns the sense-impressions... For the rest the human spirit must turn to the unseen world to which it itself belongs.<!--IV, p.43

Science and the Unseen World (1929)
Contexto: Our story of evolution ended with a stirring in the brain-organ of the latest of Nature's experiments; but that stirring of consciousness transmutes the whole story and gives meaning to its symbolism. Symbolically it is the end, but looking behind the symbolism it is the beginning.<!--III, p.38

Science and the Unseen World (1929), IV, p.46

The Nature of the Physical World (1928)
Contexto: The idealistic tinge in my conception of the physical world arose out of mathematical researches on the relativity theory. In so far as I had any earlier philosophical views, they were of an entirely different complexion.
From the beginning I have been doubtful whether it was desirable for a scientist to venture so far into extra-scientific territory. The primary justification for such an expedition is that it may afford a better view of his own scientific domain.

Preface http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Extras/Eddington_Gifford.html

The Philosophy of Physical Science (1938)
Contexto: For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure. <!-- p. 9

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)
Contexto: It is the reciprocity of these appearances—that each party should think the other has contracted—that is so difficult to realise. Here is a paradox beyond even the imagination of Dean Swift. Gulliver regarded the Lilliputians as a race of dwarfs; and the Lilliputians regarded Gulliver as a giant. That is natural. If the Lilliputians had appeared dwarfs to Gulliver, and Gulliver had appeared a dwarf to the Lilliputians—but no! that is too absurd for fiction, and is an idea only to be found in the sober pages of science.... It is not only in space but in time that these strange variations occur. If we observed the aviator carefully we should infer that he was unusually slow in his movements; and events in the conveyance moving with him would be similarly retarded—as though time had forgotten to go on. His cigar lasts twice as long as one of ours.... But here again reciprocity comes in, because in the aviator's opinion it is we who are travelling at 161,000 miles a second past him; and when he has made all allowances, he finds that it is we who are sluggish. Our cigar lasts twice as long as his.<!--pp.23-24

Introduction
The Nature of the Physical World (1928)
Contexto: In physics we have outgrown archer and apple-pie definitions of the fundamental symbols. To a request to explain what an electron really is supposed to be we can only answer, "It is part of the A B C of physics".
The external world of physics has thus become a world of shadows. In removing our illusions we have removed the substance, for indeed we have seen that substance is one of the greatest of our illusions. Later perhaps we may inquire whether in our zeal to cut out all that is unreal we may not have used the knife too ruthlessly. Perhaps, indeed, reality is a child which cannot survive without its nurse illusion. But if so, that is of little concern to the scientist, who has good and sufficient reasons for pursuing his investigations in the world of shadows and is content to leave to the philosopher the determination of its exact status in regard to reality. In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. Then comes the alchemist Mind who transmutes the symbols. The sparsely spread nuclei of electric force become a tangible solid; their restless agitation becomes the warmth of summer; the octave of aethereal vibrations becomes a gorgeous rainbow. Nor does the alchemy stop here. In the transmuted world new significances arise which are scarcely to be traced in the world of symbols; so that it becomes a world of beauty and purpose — and, alas, suffering and evil.
The frank realisation that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.

Science and the Unseen World (1929)
Contexto: What I may attempt is to dispel the feeling that in using the eye of the body or the eye of the soul, and incorporating what is thereby revealed in our conception of reality, we are doing something irrational and disobeying the leading of truth which as scientists we are pledged to serve.<!--IV, p.49

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

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

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

The Philosophy of Physical Science (1938)
Contexto: 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!"

Fuente: The Nature of the Physical World

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

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

Space, Time and Gravitation (1920)

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

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

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

Science and the Unseen World (1929)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Science and the Unseen World (1929)