Astronomers From England

"This may seem like insanity, and so it is. It offsets the real problems of modern life. How can an apparently insane species manage to organize itself in a civilized way? I am not so sure that it can. The big mystery is why we have managed to get so far."

"Inevitably we are led to ask: why does this appalling rubbish get published—and not merely published, but displayed prominently in the very heart of an apparently respectable newspaper? In a word, because this is what people want, and if The Times didn’t fill itself pretty well from cover to cover with such stuff it would soon go out of business."

"It is easy to give a recipe for writing a successful non-fiction book—simply find grounds for optimism that no one has spotted before and expatiate thereon."

"“By and large, conventional religion, as many humans accept it, is illogical in its attempt to conceive of entities lying outside the Universe. Since the Universe comprises everything, it is evident that nothing can lie outside it. The idea of a ‘god’ creating the Universe is a mechanistic absurdity clearly derived from the making of machines by men. I take it that we are in agreement about all this.”"

"Lives loss through an ‘act of God’ are regretted, perhaps deeply regretted, but they do not arouse our wildest passions. It is otherwise with lives that are forfeited through deliberate human agency. The word ‘deliberate’ is important here. One deliberate murder can produce a sharper reaction than ten thousand deaths on the roads."

"It’s only too easy to read your own state of mind into what other people say."

"Losing power, utterly and completely, is the most dreadful prospect that a politician can think of. It overshadows everything else."

"“Now do you see my point?” “I’m beginning to see through a glass darkly. You mean that the mental make-up of a leading politician is likely to be such that he couldn’t dream it possible that anyone could find the prospect of becoming a dictator wholly unpalatable.” “Yes, I can see it all, Chris,” Leicester grinned. “Graft everywhere, executions just for the laughs, no wife or daughter safe.”"

"It isn’t the Universe that’s following our logic, it’s we that are constructed in accordance with the logic of the Universe. And that gives what I might call a definition of intelligent life: something that reflects the basic structure of the Universe."

"Viewed from a wholly logical point of view the bearing and rearing of children is a thoroughly unattractive proposition. To a woman it means pain and endless worry. To a man it means extra work extending over many years to support his family. So, if we were wholly logical about sex, we should probably not bother to reproduce at all. Nature takes care of this by making us utterly and wholly irrational."

"I will say this for you, Chris. I never knew anyone who was better at finding work for other people."

"Before anyone starts criticising, let me say that I know it’s a preposterous idea and I wouldn’t suggest it for a moment if the alternative weren’t even more outrageously preposterous."

"The policy was to keep everything in watertight compartments. In the interests of security, they said, but more likely in the interests of inefficiency."

"“Not everyone views the government with quite the same disrespect that you do.” “No, more’s the pity.”"

"“You haven’t very much respect for my profession, have you, Professor Kingsley?” “Since it is you who wish for frankness, I will tell you that I have not. I regard politicians rather as I regard the instruments on the dashboard of my car. They tell me what is going on in the engine of state, but they don’t control it.”"

"Ifs and buts are the stuff of politics, Mr. Parkinson. As a scientist I am concerned with facts not with motives, suspicions, and airy-fairy nothingness."

"“I’m still waiting to hear how I should have compromised. Are you sure that ‘compromise’ and ‘capitulate’ are not synonymous in your vocabulary?”"

"The two men were mentally too dissimilar for more than a half hour of conversation between them to be possible."

"“But I can’t go along and gatecrash.” “Nonsense, of course you can come—a guest from England! You’ll be the lion of the party. Probably half a dozen film moguls from Hollywood will want to sign you up on the spot.” “All the more reason for not going,” said Kingsley."

"Time! Time! Time! — we must not impugn the Scripture Chronology, but we must interpret it in accordance with whatever shall appear on fair enquiry to be the truth for there cannot be two truths. And really there is scope enough: for the lives of the Patriarchs may as reasonably be extended to 5000 or 50000 years apiece as the days of Creation to as many thousand millions of years."

"We must never forget that it is principles, not phenomena, — laws not insulated independent facts, — which are the objects of inquiry to the natural philosopher. As truth is single, and consistent with itself, a principle may be as completely and as plainly elucidated by the most familiar and simple fact, as by the most imposing and uncommon phenomenon. The colours which glitter on a soapbubble are the immediate consequence of a principle the most important, from the variety of phenomena it explains, and the most beautiful, from its simplicity and compendious neatness, in the whole science of optics. If the nature of periodical colours can be made intelligible by the contemplation of such a trivial object, from that moment it becomes a noble instrument in the eye of correct judgment; and to blow a large, regular, and durable soap-bubble may become the serious and praise-worthy endeavour of a sage, while children stand round and scoff, or children of a larger growth hold up their hands in astonishment at such waste of time and trouble. To the natural philosopher there is no natural object unimportant or trifling. From the least of nature's works he may learn the greatest lessons. The fall of an apple to the ground may raise his thoughts to the laws which govern the revolutions of the planets in their orbits; or the situation of a pebble may afford him evidence of the state of the globe he inhabits, myriads of ages ago, before his species became its denizens. And this, is, in fact, one of the great sources of delight which the study of natural science imparts to its votaries. A mind which has once imbibed a taste for scientific inquiry, and has learnt the habit of applying its principles readily to the cases which occur, has within itself an inexhaustible source of pure and exciting contemplations. One would think that Shakspeare had such a mind in view when he describes a contemplative man as finding"

"Man is constituted as a speculative being; he contemplates the world, and the objects around him, not with a passive indifferent eye, but as a system disposed with order and design."

"God knows how ardently I wish I had ten lives"

"What God sends is welcome."

"Of the splendid constellation of great names... we admire the living and revere dead far too warmly and too deeply to suffer us sit in judgment on their respective claims to in this or that particular discovery; to balance mathematical skill of one against the experimental dexterity of another, or the philosophical acumen a third. So long as "one star differs from another in glory," — so long as there shall exist varieties, or even incompatibilities of excellence, — so long will the admiration of mankind be found sufficient for all who merit it."

"Self-respect is the cornerstone of all virtue."

"Not to feel elevated on an occasion like the present, by this noble, this magnificent testimony of approbation of my friends, is not in human nature — at all events, it is not in my nature; but if any overweaning self-complacency might arise, and mix itself with my feelings at this moment, there is one consideration which would suffice to set it at rest for ever. . . The assembly, magnificent as it is, comprising in itself, as it does, the elite of everything that is illustrious in rank, talent, wealth, in the metropolis — this very assembly is a proof of the justice to which I have adverted I should be weak indeed, if I supposed that all this glorious array has reference to myself. No; it has reference to a far higher and more dignified object. I am but as one drop in the ocean. Every man of science will feel quite as much a sharer in the honors of the day, will feel quite as much distinguished by this assembly as I can be; for when, ere this, would it have been possible to collect together such an assembly as is around me to do honor to science, place it n preeminence, and crown it with distinction? This is, indeed, a new era — this is a memorable day for science, and every man who regards truth for its own sake will feel that on this occasion the eyes of the country are on him, and that England expects every man to do his duty! By that I have been able to accomplish in Africa, I have been amply rewarded; but I stand here not so much for anything of this nature, but as the representative of a class that is distinguished — of a principle which is triumphant; and I hope we shall never allow ourselves to forget the infinitely higher and more important circumstance, that it is the great truths of science, that it is the interpretation of God's great book of nature, and not the men who interpret these pages, that are the ultimate objects of all this praise."

"Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,—with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him."

"Let me at the outset record my opinion of mathematics; I cannot do this better than by adopting, the words of Sir J. Herschel, to the influence of which I gratefully attribute the direction of my own early studies. The words are deserving of serious attention, as proceeding from one whose taste and ability had conducted him through the encyclopaedia of human knowledge; and I venture to think that at the present time they are at least as applicable as when they were addressed to a preceding generation. Sir J. Herschel says of Astronomy, "Admission to its sanctuary, and to the privileges and feelings of a votary, can only be gained by one means,—sound and sufficient knowledge of mathematics, the great instrument of all exact inquiry, without which no man can ever make such advances in this or any other of the higher departments of science as can entitle him to form an independent opinion on any subject of discussion within their range.""

"As an astronomer in the true sense of the term, Sir John Herschel stood before all his contemporaries. Nay, he stood almost alone."

"Herschel has noticed how the Stagirite obstructed the progress of astronomy by not identifying celestial with terrestrial mechanics, but laying down the principle that celestial motions were regulated by peculiar laws, thus placing them entirely without the pale of experimental research, while at the same time the progress of mechanics was impeded by the assumption of natural and unnatural motions."

"We must limit even the conception of necessary sequence, which is held to express all that is known of causation. There is no following of effects from causes; but as Sir John Herschel more truly says, the causes and effects are simultaneous."

"What is there in Paradise Lost to elevate and astonish like Herschel or Somerville?"

"If ever this theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on earth, and of all motion in heaven, is accepted, and if that other far bolder theory of Herschel, about certain organisms in the Sun, is accepted even as a provisional hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and Esoteric allegory will be shown to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years, probably, for such are the Archaic Teachings."

"In whatever state of knowledge we may conceive man to be placed, his progress towards a yet higher state need never fear a check, but must continue till the last existence of society."

"Unfortunately... the philosophy of Aristotle laid it down as a principle, that the celestial motions were regulated by laws proper to themselves, and bearing no affinity to those which prevail on earth. By thus drawing a broad and impassable line of separation between celestial and terrestrial mechanics, it placed the former altogether out of the pale of experimental research, while it at the same time impeded the progress of the latter by the assumption of principles respecting natural and unnatural motions, hastily adopted from the most superficial and cursory and remark, undeserving even the name of observation. Astronomy therefore continued for ages a science of mere record, in which theory had no part, except in so far as it attempted to conciliate the inequalities of the celestial motions with that assumed law of uniform circular revolution which was alone considered consistent with the perfection of the heavenly mechanism."

"The question "cui bono" to what practical end and advantage do your researches tend? is one which the speculative philosopher who loves knowledge for its own sake, and enjoys, as a rational being should enjoy, the mere contemplation of harmonious and mutually dependent truths, can seldom hear without a sense of humiliation. He feels that there is a lofty and disinterested pleasure in his speculations which ought to exempt them from such questioning; communicating as they do to his own mind the purest happiness (after the exercise of the benevolent and moral feelings) of which human nature is susceptible, and tending to the injury of no one, he might surely allege this as a sufficient and direct reply to those who, having themselves little capacity, and less relish for intellectual pursuits, are constantly repeating upon him this enquiry."

"Science is the knowledge of many, orderly and methodically digested and arranged, so as to become attainable by one."

"To ascend to the origin of things and speculate on the creation, is not the business of the natural philosopher. An humbler field is sufficient for him in the endeavor to discover, as far as our faculties will permit; what are these primary qualities impressed on matter, and to discover the spirit of the laws of nature"

"[Experimental Physicist] Phys. I cannot imagine myself perceiving non-Euclidean space! Math. Look at the reflection of the room in a polished doorknob, and imagine yourself one of the actors in what you see going on there."

"Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine."

"With regard to the Newtonian concept of absolute rotation, Eddington admitted that Einstein's plenum does in fact provide a world-wide inertial frame, with respect to which it can be measured. Nevertheless, Eddington believed that Einstein attributed too important a role to matter, for in his universe it appears that not only the metrical properties, as in General Relativity, but the very existence of space depends on the existence of matter. Eddington preferred to regard matter as a manifestation of the "structure" of space-time."

"The solution … was found only after the rise of nuclear physics, and, strange to relate, was not known to Eddington when he developed his celebrated theory of stellar structure between 1916 and 1924. Indeed, it is one of the most intriguing facts in the history of science that the two most influential theories concerning the stars — Newton's theory of gravitation and Eddington's theory of stellar construction — were each developed so successfully although Newton was ignorant of the origin of gravitation and Eddington of the origin of stellar energy."

"The best presentation of the general theory [of relativity] is still Eddington's book of 1923, The Mathematical Theory of Relativity. … The mathematical foundation, the calculus of tensors, is given very completely in Eddington's book. For an exhaustive treatment see: Levi-Cevita, The Absolute Differential Calculus, translated by Dr. E. Perisco (1927)."

"Our sense experience has to be supplemented by all kinds of images and formulas to tell us much about the outer world, just as we learn something about the nonphysical one from mythical images tested out in experience. Arthur Eddington has discussed at length the strange way that man receives his knowledge of the physical world in Science and the Unseen World. Mythological thinking is not as strange as some people think once they begin to see the total universe as it is."

"The equations of gravitation … signify that whenever we recognise the existence of one of these physical magnitudes it is always accompanied by corresponding curvatures of space-time. It is usual to assume that the curvatures are produced by those concrete somethings which we call mass, momentum, energy, pressure. In this way, we must concede a duality to nature; there would exist both matter and space-time, or, better still, matter and the metrical field of space-time. Einstein … attempted to remove this duality by proving that it was possible to attribute the entire existence of the metrical field, hence of space-time, to the presence of matter. This attitude led to a matter-moulding conception of the universe … And … only when this attitude was adhered to could Mach's belief in the relativity of all motion be accepted. Eddington's attitude is just the reverse. He prefers to assume that the equations of gravitation are not equations in the ordinary sense of something being equal to something else. In his opinion they are identities. They merely tell us how our senses will recognize the existence of certain curvatures of space-time by interpreting them as matter, motion, and so on. In other words, there is no matter; there is nothing but a variable curvature of space-time. Matter, momentum, vis viva, are the names we give to those curvatures on account of the varying ways they affect our senses."

"One of the foremost scientists, not only of the 20th Century, but of the entire history of the human species. His achievements include, but are not limited to, the integration of modern astrophysics, major advances in the early history of relativistic cosmology, major additions to modern astronomical advancements, a superior exposition of the philosophy of physical science, and authorship of many books and articles making science more meaningful, not only to scientists, but to all rational and curious individuals. His achievements will radiate for the duration of the human species!"

"The mathematics is not there till we put it there."

"Let us suppose that an ichthyologist is exploring the life of the ocean. He casts a net into the water and brings up a fishy assortment. Surveying his catch, he proceeds in the usual manner of a scientist to systematise what it reveals. He arrives at two generalisations: No sea-creature is less than two inches long. (2) All sea-creatures have gills. These are both true of his catch, and he assumes tentatively that they will remain true however often he repeats it. In applying this analogy, the catch stands for the body of knowledge which constitutes physical science, and the net for the sensory and intellectual equipment which we use in obtaining it. The casting of the net corresponds to observation; for knowledge which has not been or could not be obtained by observation is not admitted into physical science. An onlooker may object that the first generalisation is wrong. "There are plenty of sea-creatures under two inches long, only your net is not adapted to catch them." The icthyologist dismisses this objection contemptuously. "Anything uncatchable by my net is ipso facto outside the scope of icthyological knowledge. In short, what my net can't catch isn't fish." Or — to translate the analogy — "If you are not simply guessing, you are claiming a knowledge of the physical universe discovered in some other way than by the methods of physical science, and admittedly unverifiable by such methods. You are a metaphysician. Bah!""

"For the truth of the conclusions of physical science, observation is the supreme Court of Appeal. It does not follow that every item which we confidently accept as physical knowledge has actually been certified by the Court; our confidence is that it would be certified by the Court if it were submitted. But it does follow that every item of physical knowledge is of a form which might be submitted to the Court. It must be such that we can specify (although it may be impracticable to carry out) an observational procedure which would decide whether it is true or not. Clearly a statement cannot be tested by observation unless it is an assertion about the results of observation. Every item of physical knowledge must therefore be an assertion of what has been or would be the result of carrying out a specified observational procedure."