I ask you to look both ways. For the road to a knowledge of the stars leads through the atom and important knowledge of the atom has been reached through the stars.
Sir Arthur Eddington
knowledge road stars important
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.
results truth science confidence true knowledge observation court physical form accept result observational
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 'and'.
learn great finding
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origins. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo It is our own.
unknown profound found strange theories made origins
Something unknown is doing we don't know what.
unknown
If an army of monkeys were strumming on typewriters, they might write all the books in the British Museum.
army write british monkeys books
Life would be stunted and narrow if we could feel no significance in the world around us beyond that which can be weighed and measured with the tools of the physicist or described by the metrical symbols of the mathematician.
symbols life world tools feel significance
Every body continues in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, except insofar as it doesn't.
rest body state
We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong.
accident wrong matter star cold
When told that only 3 men in the world understood Relativity, Eddington asked <br/>I wonder who is the third?
men world relativity
We often think that when we have completed our study of one we know all about two, because two is one and one. We forget that we still have to make a study of and.
study forget
Proof is the idol before whom the pure mathematician tortures himself.
proof pure
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