Quote #11

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.

More from Arthur Stanley Eddington

  1. Science aims at constructing a world which shall be symbolic of the world of commonplace experience. It is not at all necessary that every …
  2. 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 …
  3. The idealistic tinge in my conception of the physical world arose out of mathematical researches on the relativity theory. In so far as I h…
  4. The quest of the absolute leads into the four-dimensional world.
  5. 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 '…
  6. Motion with respect to the universal ocean of aether eludes us. We say, 'Let V be the velocity of a body through the aether', and form the …
  7. It is also a good rule not to put overmuch confidence in the observational results that are put forward until they are confirmed by theory.
  8. Shuffling is the only thing which Nature cannot undo.

All Arthur Stanley Eddington quotes