51 Facts About Arthur Eddington

Arthur Eddington was a philosopher of science and a populariser of science.

At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete mystery; Arthur Eddington was the first to correctly speculate that the source was fusion of hydrogen into helium.

Arthur Eddington wrote a number of articles that announced and explained Einstein's theory of general relativity to the English-speaking world.

Arthur Eddington conducted an expedition to observe the solar eclipse of 29 May 1919 on the Island of Principe that provided one of the earliest confirmations of general relativity, and he became known for his popular expositions and interpretations of the theory.

Arthur Eddington's father taught at a Quaker training college in Lancashire before moving to Kendal to become headmaster of Stramongate School.

Arthur Eddington died in the typhoid epidemic which swept England in 1884.

Arthur Eddington's mother was left to bring up her two children with relatively little income.

Arthur Eddington proved to be a most capable scholar, particularly in mathematics and English literature.

Arthur Eddington's performance earned him a scholarship to Owens College, Manchester, in 1898, which he was able to attend, having turned 16 that year.

Arthur Eddington spent the first year in a general course, but he turned to physics for the next three years.

Arthur Eddington's progress was rapid, winning him several scholarships, and he graduated with a BSc in physics with First Class Honours in 1902.

In January 1906, Arthur Eddington was nominated to the post of chief assistant to the Astronomer Royal at the Royal Greenwich Observatory.

Arthur Eddington was put to work on a detailed analysis of the parallax of 433 Eros on photographic plates that had started in 1900.

Arthur Eddington developed a new statistical method based on the apparent drift of two background stars, winning him the Smith's Prize in 1907.

In December 1912, George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, died suddenly, and Arthur Eddington was promoted to his chair as the Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy in early 1913.

Later that year, Robert Ball, holder of the theoretical Lowndean chair, died, and Arthur Eddington was named the director of the entire Cambridge Observatory the next year.

Arthur Eddington investigated the interior of stars through theory, and developed the first true understanding of stellar processes.

Arthur Eddington began this in 1916 with investigations of possible physical explanations for Cepheid variable stars.

Arthur Eddington began by extending Karl Schwarzschild's earlier work on radiation pressure in Emden polytropic models.

Arthur Eddington developed his model despite knowingly lacking firm foundations for understanding opacity and energy generation in the stellar interior.

However, his results allowed for calculation of temperature, density and pressure at all points inside a star, and Arthur Eddington argued that his theory was so useful for further astrophysical investigation that it should be retained despite not being based on completely accepted physics.

At that time, the source of stellar energy was a complete mystery; Arthur Eddington correctly speculated that the source was fusion of hydrogen into helium, liberating enormous energy according to Einstein's equation.

Arthur Eddington's paper, based on knowledge at the time, reasoned that:.

Arthur Eddington's theory appeared in mature form in 1926 as The Internal Constitution of the Stars, which became an important text for training an entire generation of astrophysicists.

Chandrasekhar's work presaged the discovery of black holes, which at the time seemed so absurdly non-physical that Arthur Eddington refused to believe that Chandrasekhar's purely mathematical derivation had consequences for the real world.

Arthur Eddington was fortunate in being not only one of the few astronomers with the mathematical skills to understand general relativity, but owing to his internationalist and pacifist views inspired by his Quaker religious beliefs, one of the few at the time who was still interested in pursuing a theory developed by a German physicist.

Arthur Eddington quickly became the chief supporter and expositor of relativity in Britain.

When conscription was introduced in Britain on 2 March 1916, Arthur Eddington intended to apply for an exemption as a conscientious objector.

Cambridge University authorities instead requested and were granted an exemption on the ground of Arthur Eddington's work being of national interest.

Arthur Eddington made clear his willingness to serve in the Friends' Ambulance Unit, under the jurisdiction of the British Red Cross, or as a harvest labourer.

However, the tribunal's decision to grant a further twelve months' exemption from military service was on condition of Arthur Eddington continuing his astronomy work, in particular in preparation for the Principe expedition.

Arthur Eddington showed that Newtonian gravitation could be interpreted to predict half the shift predicted by Einstein.

Arthur Eddington's observations published the next year allegedly confirmed Einstein's theory, and were hailed at the time as evidence of general relativity over the Newtonian model.

Arthur Eddington was heavily involved with the development of the first generation of general relativistic cosmological models.

Arthur Eddington had been investigating the instability of the Einstein universe when he learned of both Lemaitre's 1927 paper postulating an expanding or contracting universe and Hubble's work on the recession of the spiral nebulae.

Arthur Eddington felt the cosmological constant must have played the crucial role in the universe's evolution from an Einsteinian steady state to its current expanding state, and most of his cosmological investigations focused on the constant's significance and characteristics.

Arthur Eddington was convinced that the mass of the proton and the charge of the electron were a "natural and complete specification for constructing a Universe" and that their values were not accidental.

Arthur Eddington believed he had identified an algebraic basis for fundamental physics, which he termed "E-numbers".

Arthur Eddington did not complete this line of research before his death in 1944; his book Fundamental Theory was published posthumously in 1948.

Arthur Eddington is credited with devising a measure of a cyclist's long-distance riding achievements.

From this, Arthur Eddington inferred that a materialistic metaphysics was outmoded and that, in consequence, since the disjunction of materialism or idealism are assumed to be exhaustive, an idealistic metaphysics is required.

Charles De Koninck points out that Arthur Eddington believed in objective reality existing apart from our minds, but was using the phrase "mind-stuff" to highlight the inherent intelligibility of the world: that our minds and the physical world are made of the same "stuff" and that our minds are the inescapable connection to the world.

Arthur Eddington proclaimed "It is a consequence of the advent of the quantum theory that physics is no longer pledged to a scheme of deterministic law".

Arthur Eddington agreed with the tenet of logical positivism that "the meaning of a scientific statement is to be ascertained by reference to the steps which would be taken to verify it".

Arthur Eddington wrote a parody of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, recounting his 1919 solar eclipse experiment.

Arthur Eddington argued for a deeply rooted philosophical harmony between scientific investigation and religious mysticism, and that the positivist nature of relativity and quantum physics provided new room for personal religious experience and free will.

Arthur Eddington died of cancer in the Evelyn Nursing Home, Cambridge, on 22 November 1944.

Arthur Eddington's body was cremated at Cambridge Crematorium on 27 November 1944; the cremated remains were buried in the grave of his mother in the Ascension Parish Burial Ground in Cambridge.

Arthur Eddington was played by David Tennant in the television film Einstein and Arthur Eddington, with Einstein played by Andy Serkis.

The actor Paul Arthur Eddington was a relative, mentioning in his autobiography "what I then felt to be the misfortune" of being related to "one of the foremost physicists in the world".

Paul's father Albert and Sir Arthur were second cousins, both great-grandsons of William Eddington.