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It is shown how the epistemological thesis that physics can provide knowledge only of the structure of the physical world emerged in Arthur Eddington’s semi-popular, philosophical and technical writings on the general theory of relativity. The implicitly Kantian character of Eddington’s conception of “world building” in a geometrized physics is developed through examination of Eddington’s two principal works on general relativity. Eddington’s structuralism is contrasted with that associated with Bertrand Russell, and his conception of the mind’s role in “world building” is linked to earlier views of the mathematician William Kingdom Clifford.

This chapter begins by investigating Arthur Eddington's early life and his biography. It discusses that one of his first research programmes concerned the ‘star drifts’ discovered by Jacobus Kapteyn. It narrates his devotion to the study of stellar dynamics as well as the anomalies that he encountered. The chapter also evaluates his investigations regarding the solar eclipse, the internal structure of the stars, and Sirius B. It then examines some of Eddington's wilder speculations.

This chapter examines the unpublished letters and journal entries of British astrophysicist Arthur Stanley Eddington related to the relativity theory. It explains that Eddington used the public hunger for a commonsense account of relativity in an idealist interpretation of physics. It also mentions that Eddington invited readers to participate in establishing the significance of new physical laws.

It is shown how Eddington’s 1921 generalization of Weyl’s theory of gravitation and electromagnetism stemmed from similar transcendental idealist epistemological concerns. While Eddington’s affine field theory served as a template for numerous attempts within Einstein’s own unified field theory program, Eddington’s understanding of a geometrized physics remained epistemological in origin and motivation, seeking to provide a graphical representation of the most general conditions of possible experience of a world constructed from the point of view of “no one in particular.” This represents Eddington’s belief that local symmetries have a particularly important constitutive role in fundamental physical theory.

CCN met the famous astronomer Arthur Eddington in Cambridge, England, in 1938. Their conversation dealt in part with Eddington’s important role in the theory of the expanding universe and in part with his new, ambitious research programme aimed at unifying quantum mechanics and cosmology. He believed that his theory, when fully developed, would lead to precise and purely deductive values of the constants of nature. But he also realized that very few scientists understood his theory and even fewer accepted it. He explained the revolutionary nature of his theory, which was meant to be nothing less than a theory of everything that in principle makes observation and experiment superfluous. His favoured cosmological model was a universe gradually evolving from an Einstein state, and he dismissed Lemaître’s new primeval-atom model.

The transcendental idealist underpinnings of the geometrized field physics proposed by Hermann Weyl and by Arthur Eddington remained largely unrecognized. Èmile Meyerson was a notable exception. It is argued that Meyerson came closest to comprehending the epistemological motivations of Weyl and Eddington yet was hindered by his failure to understand how transcendental idealism could be supported in the absence of a literal interpretation of the Transcendental Aesthetic. While geometrical unification in physics ostensibly supports a structural realism, the theories of Weyl and Eddington, to the contrary, are explicit attempts to show how the concept of physical object has been transformed within the general theory of relativity.

The general theory of relativity (GTR) brought a revolutionary transformation in philosophical as well as physical outlook. The philosopher Mortiz Schick, student of Max Planck, played a pivotal role in fashioning the received view that GTR implied the untenability of any type of Kantian philosophy. Schlick’s assessment ignored the philosophically motivated contributions to GTR by Hermann Weyl and Arthur Eddington. Paul Dirac in 1931 recognized the significance of a new method of a priori mathematical speculation in theoretical physics, tying it to Eddington (and to Weyl).

In this chapter, we show how the newest developments in quantum mechanics of the late 1920s were very quickly compared with general relativity, with attempts made to demonstrate their mutual coherence. This involved focusing on the basic mathematical structures that formed the first concrete representations of quantum mechanical systems. The aim was structural harmonisation, rather than quantization. Likewise, we will find that conceptual debates, especially having to do with measurement and the uncertainty relations, as well as new cosmological discoveries (based on applications of general relativity) were also quickly compared, often with surprising results such as explanations of discreteness and predictions of particle production in curved spaces. We see two primary motivations pushing this research forward: coherence (into which the more formal approaches also fit) and utility (that is attempting to gain a better grip on the quantum theory).

This chapter examines the poems of William Empson related to astronomy and relativity theory. It explains that Empson's metaphysical love poems tested out the universe of Albert Einstein and Arthur Stanley Eddington to see what resources it might offer adventurous lovers in an age of relativity. It also shows Empson's deep engagement with relativity and highlights his relevance to recent developments in the study of modernist literature.

This chapter deals with the early exploration of observational and experimental consequences of general relativity. It explores Erwin Freundlich's failed attempts to verify gravitational light bending and the redshift. The long collaboration between Einstein and Freundlich suffered a setback caused by personal tensions and disagreements around the end of 1921. Nevertheless, they continued to collaborate until both of them had to leave Germany when the Nazis came to power. The chapter also focuses on the triumphal confirmation of light bending during a solar eclipse by Arthur Eddington's expedition. Finally, this chapter considers the Hubble's discovery of the redshift of distant galaxies, which established the notion of an expanding universe.

This chapter aims to liberate the ether from its historiographical assignment to classical physics, instead considering its role in debates surrounding the future of the discipline. Focusing on the British case, it explores the discussions underway in professional spaces between 1909 and 1914, suggesting that a physicist’s commitment to the ether does not classify them as a ‘classicist’ but rather as an advocate of continuity in the discipline. It then examines the ether’s ‘popular’ life following the well-publicised 1919 eclipse expedition, and the subsequent expository efforts by the ‘classical’ Oliver Lodge and ‘modern’ Arthur Stanley Eddington. By moving beyond a traditional approach that divides physics and physicists into classical and modern, this chapter suggests a more substantial role for the ether in professional and popular early twentieth-century British physics.

In this chapter we examine the very earliest work on the problem of quantum gravity (understood very liberally). We show that, even before the concept of the quantization of the gravitational field in 1929, there was a fairly lively investigation of the relationships between gravity and quantum stretching as far back as 1916, and certainly no suggestion that such a theory would not be forthcoming. Indeed, there are, rather, many suggestions explicitly advocating that an integration of quantum theory and general relativity (or gravitation, at least) is essential for future physics, in order to construct a satisfactory foundation. We also see how this belief was guided by a diverse family of underlying agendas and constraints, often of a highly philosophical nature.

This chapter introduces the reader to the philosophical debate around color and gives an overview of the central themes and conclusions of the book. It proposes that there are two distinct ways of setting up the problem of color ontology. The first is through cases of perceptual variation (as illustrated by Betrand Russell) and the second is through the clash of the “manifest” and “scientific images” (as illustrated by Arthur Eddington and Wilfrid Sellars). Comparisons are drawn between the debate over color and other topics in philosophy concerning the nature of perceptual experience, the relationship between neurophysiology and psychology, and more generally, the place of mind in nature.

This chapter explores a recurrent theme in the philosophical reflection on science that has been expressed by both philosophers and scientists: the contrast between the characteristics commonly attributed to things on the basis of everyday encounters with them and the accounts of those things given by scientific theories which formulate a pervasive executive order of nature. This can be seen as early as the time of Democritus, when he declared that while things are customarily described through sensory perception, in truth there are only the atoms and the void. Galileo also implied such a contrast between the primary and secondary qualities of bodies. Sir Arthur Eddington offered a more dramatic presentation by asking which of the two tables at which he was seated was “really there”—the solid, substantial table of familiar experience, or the insubstantial scientific table that is composed of speeding electric charges and is therefore mostly “emptiness.”

Today the laws of physics are often seen as evidence for a naturalistic worldview. However, historically, physics was usually considered compatible with belief in God. Foundations of physics such as thermodynamics, uniformity of nature, and causality were seen as religiously based by physicists such as James Clerk Maxwell and William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. These were usually interpreted as evidence of design by a creative deity. In the late nineteenth century, John Tyndall and other scientific naturalists made the argument that these foundations were more sympathetic to a non-religious understanding of the natural world. With the success of this approach, twentieth-century religious physicists tended to stress non-material and experiential connections rather than looking for evidence of design. Later parts of that century saw a revival of natural theological arguments in the form of the anthropic principle and the fine-tuning problem. While modern physics is naturalistic, this was not inevitable and there were several alternative approaches common in earlier times.

Lucy Hawking has had the good fortune of being the daughter of the most famous living physicist; she has had the better fortune of having been a teenager before Stephen Hawking became famous, a time when he was known and respected only by other theoretical physicists. In this less hectic time, he was just a father, a man with a disability, to be sure, but not a disabled man, a sufferer from Lou Gehrig’s disease who defied the odds. Who could view as disabled a man who zipped through the streets of Cambridge in a Formula 1 electric wheelchair driven at reckless speeds and, on one occasion at least, almost disastrous consequences? Hawking is now, perhaps, the most famous physicist since Einstein. While his work significantly expands the territory of the scientific sublime, his life embodies that sublime. This is not the ethical sublime that Rachel Carson, the subject of the next chapter, embodies; it is not a code of conduct. Rather, it is our firm sense that we are dealing with an extraordinary human being who has overcome daunting challenges to become an impressive virtual presence, a man who, alone among contemporary scientists, is a star, nay, a superstar. Confined to a wheelchair, he towers above us, an exemplar, a demonstration of just how deep a deep-seated commitment to science can be. But is he any good at physics? Is it all hype? His heroes—Galileo, Newton, and Einstein—are models he cannot hope to emulate. Those on whom he consistently relies—Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Richard Feynman—are clearly his superiors. True, he is an elite physicist honored by his peers, but he is more a Dom than a Joe DiMaggio, excellent, though not the very best. As he says himself, “To my colleagues am just another physicist.” But his professional reputation hardly matters, because, as he asserts with characteristic good humor: . . . To the wider public I became possibly the best-known scientist in the world. This is partly because scientists, apart from Einstein, are not widely known rock stars, and partly because I fit the stereotype of a disabled genius. I can’t disguise myself with a wig and dark glasses—the wheelchair gives me away. . . .