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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    though properly speaking 0 is a measure of the fog rather than the stuff itself. More often I shall call it “probabihty”, i.e. probabihty of a particle being present; but that imphes that there is a universe of particles hovering in the background of our thoughts, although we have seen that it cannot properly be described as the universe conceived in modern physics. We ought therefore to say that on the present view the content of the universe consists, not of particles, but of waves of iff. But at the same time it must be reahsed that a universe composed of tp waves necessarily contains a large subjective element. Its constituents collect into drops or dissolve into fog according as our knowledge of them happens to be precise or partial. It is a stage whereon the spirit-actors materiahse and dissolve as we turn our attention one way and another. There is a provision (Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, p. 97) that as the geometrical characteristics of a constituent condense its mechanical characteristics dissolve, so that the actor never comes wholly into focus at one and the same time. We must concede therefore that “the universe as it is con¬ ceived in modern physics” is not identical with what a philosopher would call “the objective physical universe”. When we come to think of it there is no reason why it should be. The task of physical science is to disclose the scheme of the recurrencies in the combined experience of conscious beings. We have seen that the universe which con¬ stitutes the solution of this problem must necessarily have the characteristics of regularity and extemahty; we said nothing about objectivity. And so it happens that the aim of science and the search for an objective universe follow the same road up to a certain point and then part company. The scientist then has no choice as to which route to follow; he can only solve the problem for which our experience pro¬ vides the data.