Arthur Stanley Eddington

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Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington|, OM (December 28, 1882 – November 22, 1944) was arguably the most important astrophysicist from the early 20th century.

Sourced

  • [I]t is [sound judgment] to hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star
  • 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.
    • The Nature of the Physical World (1915); chapter 4

Attributed

  • 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'.
  • Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
    • Variant: The universe is not only stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.
    • Sometimes known as Haldane's Law after J.B.S Haldane's similar quote: "the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we CAN suppose."

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