Sir Arthur Eddington was a British astrophysicist who carried the torch for Einstein’s theories of relativity in Britain at a time when all things German were unpopular.

Quotes by Arthur Eddington in Time One

We were in the position of a librarian whose books were still being arranged according to a subject scheme drawn up a hundred years ago, trying to find the right place for books on Hollywood, the Air Force and detective novels.

… a rather inaccessible journal.

I am a detective in search of a criminal―the cosmical constant. … I think I have enough evidence to justify an arrest.

I deal with the view now tentatively held that the whole material universe of stars and galaxies of stars is dispersing, the galaxies scattering apart so as to occupy an ever-increasing volume. But I deal with it not as an end in itself. To take an analogy from detective fiction, it is the clue not the criminal.

A hundred thousand million Stars make one Galaxy; A hundred thousand million Galaxies make one Universe.

… there is no doubt that his words express what is in our minds when we refer to determinism.

Astronomical measurements are, without exception, measurements of phenomena occurring in a terrestrial observatory or station; it is only by theory that they are translated into knowledge of a universe outside.

Following time backwards, we find more and more organization in the world. … [W]e must come to the time when the matter and energy of the world had the maximum possible organization. To go back further is impossible. We have come to an abrupt end of space-time – only we generally call it the ‘beginning.

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”.

As a scientist I simply do not believe that the present order of things started off with a bang.

I shall use the phrase “time’s arrow” to express this one-way property of time which has no analogue in space.

Something unknown is doing we don’t know what―that is what our theory amounts to.

Astronomical measurements are, without exception, measurements of phenomena occurring in a terrestrial observatory or station; it is only by theory that they are translated into knowledge of a universe outside.

The universe is expanding so as to double its dimensions every 1300 million years; that is no more than the period of geological time.

Physics is becoming difficult to understand. First relativity theory, then quantum theory, then wave mechanics have transformed the universe, making it ever more fantastic to our minds.

[T]he nightmare of infinity still arises in regard to time. The world is closed in its space dimensions like a sphere, but it is open at both ends in the time dimension.

Philosophically, the notion of a beginning of the present order of Nature is repugnant to me.

Eureka would rightly be regarded as a crank-theory by scientists of the time.

Aether is everywhere.