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Sir Arthur Eddington, OM No. 3920, DECEMBER 16, 1944 NATURE 759 expeditions to set out. But the end of the War came "An intelligence, unacquainted with our universe, in time, and Davidson and Crommelin from Green­ but acquainted with the system of thought by which wich went to Brazil, while Eddington and Cottingham the human mind interprets to itself the content of went to Principe. Both expeditions made successful its sensory experience, should be able to attain all observations, and the results obtained supported the knowledge of physics that we have attained by Einstein's prediction of the amount of the deflexion, experiment. He would not deduce the particular and did much to secure general acceptance of the events and objects of our experience, but he would theory. In "Space, Time and Gravitation" (1920) deduce the generalizations we have based on them. Eddington gave a non-mathematical account of the For example,· he would infer the existence and pro­ theory, to which he prefixed the very appropriate perties of radium, but not the dimensions of the quotation from "Paradise Lost": Earth". This is a philosophy of science that does not com­ Perhaps to move mand general acceptance to-day. Nevertheless, it His laughter at their quaint opinions wide may well be that generations yet to come will regard Hereafter, when they come to model heaven Eddington's recent work as one of the most importa.r.t And calculate the stars : how they will wield and significant advances in science. The mighty frame : how build, unbuild, contrive In "The Nature of the Physical World" (1928) To save appearance. being the Gifford Lectures for 1927, and "New Path­ About this time there appeared a spate of popular ways in Science" ( 1935), being the Messenger Lectures accounts of the theory, but none could compare with at Cornell for 1934, Eddington dealt with the new Ed«;iington's masterly presentation. In 1923 he developments in science-the theory of relativity, followed this with "The Mathematical Theory of quantum theory, the principle of indeterminacy, the Relativity", which included an. account of his own expansion of the universe, etc.-and with their effect important contribution- a generalization of Weyl's on philosophical thought. Both books were essentially theory of the electromagnetic and gravitational concerned with the question : What kind of know­ fields, based on the notion of parallel displacement. ledge does science give us ? He showed that in He emphasized that there must be woven into the dealing with the universe, science is confined to structure of the world a standard of length making investigating its structure ; it can tell us nothing of possible the comparison of lengths at different points the nature of that which possesses that structure. in space-time. It was not so much the particular form that scientific Much of Eddington's later work was concerned theories have now taken that is important, for they with the development of the cosmological aspects of may in time give way to some fuller realization of relativity theory and with the unification of quantum the world, as the movement of thought behind them tbeory and relativity theory. Observations had changes. Whatever changes may come, it will never shown that the external galaxies were receding from be possible to go back to the old outlook. Eddington our own galaxy and from each other with speeds was a ma.Ster of the English language, and these lucid proportional to their mutual distances apart. This expositions did more than any other books to make gave rise to the conception of the expansion of the the intelligent layman aware of the new trends in universe. The small popular book "The Expanding science and of their philosophical implications. Universe" (1933) gave an account of the phenomena Eddington was elected a fellow of the Royal Society to be expected in a finite expanding spherical universe, in 1914 and was awarded its Royal Medal in 1928. of the type first suggested by Einstein and later He was president of the Royal Astronomical Society !feveloped by the Abbe Lemaitre. Eddington sought dur,ing 1921-23, and foreign secretary from 1933, and to find relations between the radius of curvature of was awarded its Gold Medal in 1924. He was awarded space, the recession-velocity constant of the external the Bruce Gold Medal of the Astronomical Society of galaxies, the number of particles (or the mean the Pacific in 1924. He was president of the Physical density of matter) in the universe and the physical Society during 1930-32. He received honorary constants, such as the ratio of the mass of the proton doctorates from twelve universities, and was honorary to that of the electron, the ratio of the gravitational member, foreign member or foreign associate of many to the electric force between a proton and an electron, learned societies in Europe and America. He was the fine-structure constant and the velocity of light. created a Knight Bachelor in 1930 and received the The connexion between the constant of gravitation Order of Merit in 1938. He was elected president of and Planck's constant was obtained by treating an the International Astronomical Union at its last Einstein universe first by relativity theory and then General Assembly in 1938. He was a great ambassador by wave-mechanics applied to the system of particles of science, who travelled and lectured widely. forming that universe. The mathematical account of Many in Great Britain mourn the passing of a the theory was given in "The Relativity Theory of friend and colleague while still in the zenith of his Protons and Electrons" (1936) and was revised and intellectual powers ; their sense of loss will be shared completed in his lectures before the Dublin Institute . by many others in all parts of the world, who have for Advanced Studies, entitled "The Combination of admired from afar his achievements and have Relativity Theory and Quantum Theory" (1943). received instruction and stimulus from his writings. These tesearches, to which Eddington gave much H. SPENCER JoNES. time and thought, have not yet carried general con­ viction, though the agreement between observed constants ·and the values found by pure reasoning THROUGHOUT his career as an astronomer, Sir are extraordinarily close. The extremely abstruse Arthur Eddington's connexion with the Royal and complex nature of the investigations, which few Astronomical Society, both formal and scientific, was can claim to have thoroughly understood, is no doubt close and intimate. He was elected a fellow in 1906, responsible in some measure,'but the purely deductive was president during 1921-23 (a period of office nature of the theory is an important contributory which included the celebration Of the centenary of factor. Eddington wrote that : the 'Society), received its Gold Medal in 1924, and ©1944 Nature Publishing Group 760 NATURE DECEMBER 16, 1944, VoL. 154 after H. H. Turner's death eventually inherited his of all their electrons-of their crinoline, as Sir Alfred office as foreign secretary, his corner-seat in the front Ewing termed it-are a simple corollary of the row at meetings and, it is fair to add, his place in nuclear theory of the atom : the pressure of radiation, the affections of the fellows. He used its Monthly measured in the laboratory, had been invoked to Notices as the medium of publication for almost all explain the behaviour of the tails of comets. Edding­ his fundamental contributions to science. Thus his ton seized upon these conceptions and, combining early papers on star-streaming appeared there ; his them with the laws of gravitation, evolved a theory initial papers on Cepheid pulsations in 1916 appeared within the comprehension of the ordinary physicist, there ; and these led in turn to his beautiful theory of which explained beautifully the general features of the radiative equilibrium of the stars, in which the stellar structure and stellar evolution. Bare nuclei, flow of radiation was first recognized as a basic together with the electrons freed from their normal process in the transfer of energy in stellar interiors, orbits, readily represent a gas of great density, such and in which the mechanical pressure of radiation as was required to explain the compactness of the was first shown to be an important element in the dark companion of Sirius and other white dwarfs. mechanical equilibrium. By bold imaginative conceptions of this kind, com­ The steps by which Eddington successively un­ bined with technical mathematical powers of the covered the dependence of relative radiation pressure highest order, Eddington made of the stellar universe a on molecular weight, the dependence of that on physics laboratory where somewhat extreme condi­ ionization, the importance of radiation pressure in tions prevailed, but nevertheless a physics laboratory. perhaps fixing the order of magnitude of the masses His early work on relativity and his observations of the stars, and the probable gaseous character (on that established the bending of light in a gravitational his hypotheses) of the whole interior of a star, are field were likewise matters which appealed to every among the most fascinating in the history of physicist. His later work on the connexion of the mathematical physics. They led in turn to his r!Jcog­ theories of relativity and quantum mechanics, which nition of the mass-luminosity law obeyed indifferently enabled him to relate the velocity-distance relation of by giant and dwarf stars, which, however unsatis­ the spiral nebuloo to th{) number of part­ factory still in its theoretical aspects, is an important icles in the universe, his mysttJrious number 137, &upplement to our methods of ascertaining stellar are hard matters for mltlly of us, but we feel that it is masses.
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