New pathways in science / by Sir Arthur Eddington.

  • Eddington, Arthur Stanley, Sir, 1882-1944.
Date:
1935
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: New pathways in science / by Sir Arthur Eddington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    now begins to appear as a pure mathematician”.* Jeans had previously considered but rejected another explanation. “ So, it may be suggested, the mathematician only sees nature through the mathematical blinkers he has fashioned for himself.” In rejecting what seems to me to be the right explanation, Jeans dwells on the failure of anthropomorphic theories and later the devices of the engineer to explain the universe, and he contrasts them with the success of the mathematical con¬ ception. There are two factors which, it seems to me, explain the comparative success of the mathematician. In the first place the mathematician is the professional •wielder of sym¬ bols ; he can deal with unknoAvn quantities and even unknown operations. Clearly he is the man to help us to sift a httle knowledge from a vast unknovm. But the main reason why the mathematician has beaten his rivals is that we have allowed him to dictate the terms of the competition. The fate of every theory of the universe is decided by a numerical test. Does the sum come out right ? I am not sure that the mathematician understands this world of ours better than the poet and the mystic. Perhaps it is only that he is better at sums. IV / The stress here laid on the hmitations of physical science will, I hope, not be misunderstood by the reader. There is no suggestion that science has become a declining force; rather we obtain a clearer appreciation of the contribution which it is able to make, bo^ now and in the future, to human development and culture. Within its own hmitations physical science has become greatly strengthened by the changes. It has become more sure of its aims—and perliaps less sure of its achievements. Since the last most bewildering revolution of physical theory (wave mechanics) there has been an * Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe, p. 134.