Talk:Arthur Stanley Eddington

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An event mentioned in this article is a May 29 selected anniversary.

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I have removed from the article the folowing statement:

From the 1920s until his death, he increasingly concentrated on what he called "fundamental theory" which was intended to be a unification of quantum theory, relativity and gravitation, based on almost numerological analysis of the dimensionless ratios of fundamental constants.

From what I've just read about him, this is a gross exaggeration. Investigation under way. -- looxix 02:57 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

I believe that it relevant ... and I did find a book in 1928 called the fundamental theory. So, unless there is evidence to refute that ... I'm gonna put it back in. JDR

Agree with JDR. "Fundamental theory" is a serious work of science that does indeed represent an important finale to Eddington's work. It was published not in 1928 but posthumously in 1948 by Whittaker, one of E's followers. It is a high-powered and difficult, innovative mathematical work that includes new mathematics. Coming so late, it had little impact on mainstream scientists, who were already running on other tracks. Apart from its difficulty, there was and still is the stigma of that easy pejorative "numerology" (although when one ruffles through the pages, one sees differential equations and matrix algebra, much more frequently than the "magic numbers"). IMHO this might even be a "sleeper", some day people might catch up with it and do something with it but they would have to be awfully good at math. Call me a romantic, but yes it does have its place in this article.

Adrian Pollock (talk) 23:21, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

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Eddington's experimental investigation of general relativity grew directly out his Quaker peace witness, since he wanted to revive cooperation between German and British physicists after the war. This is documented in an article published in Isis (a prominent history-of-science journal) last year, but I have yet to find any online corroboration, which is why I'm putting this claim on the talk page for now. Arkuat 02:29, 2004 Jul 18 (UTC)

Contents 1 Vandalism 2 Reverted vandalism by 195.194.227.196 again 3 eclipse question 4 Eddington and Chandrasekhar 5 Editing Problems

[edit] Vandalism

Under Biography, the word "headmaster of Stramongate..." was edited into "hI HATE NIGGERSeadmaster of Stramongate..." This was done by IP address 24.222.146.103, as you can tell on the history page.

This page has since been vandalised again by 81.179.108.9. Could someone revert it? I don't know how.Leon... 07:24, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reverted vandalism by 195.194.227.196 again

I reverted 195.194.227.196's changes again. On 27 April, that user deleted most of the article, which I undid later that day. On 2 May, 195.194.227.196 inserted this:

bigoted prejudice was the fact that Chandra was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1983 for the very work Eddington was too thick to understand.

Obviously, these changes violate NPOV and other Wikipedia style policies. I undid them. 84.238.10.31 19:20, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

The Quakers were fairly instrumental in the Underground railroad.

[edit] eclipse question

"Newtonian gravitation predicted half the shift of general relativity."

wouldn't newtonian gravity predict zero shift, since in newton's formulation gravity does not affect light?

Why do you think gravity would not affect light? See Light#Particle_theory --Henrygb 13:50, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

This puzzled me, too. Apparently, however, Newton's particle theory of light said that refraction occurred in denser media due to gravitation. So you would see a shift. With the wave theory, however, you would not. I think we tend to forget this because of wave-particle duality of light, plus relativity, renders this part of Newton's particle theory obsolete. Bigmac31 20:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Eddington and Chandrasekhar

I noticed the removal of Chandrasekhar from famous students of Eddington. It's true that they were bitter rivals, especially since 1935. However Chandra was a student of Eddington. At his PhD examination in 1933, the only professors present were Ralph Fowler (Chandra's supervisor - at least nominal) and Eddington (my source: Arthur I. Miller Empire of the Stars). Therefore I would vote to restore Chandra as a student of Eddington. It's not a rare event that a former student becomes the main rival of a scholar. Friendly Neighbour 12:17, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

As I recall it, the young Chandrasekhar even came to England in order to study under Eddington. Chandra was clearly one of Eddington's greatest students. There's an element of tragedy in the way Eddington himself was unable to cope with Chandra's (theoretical)"discovery" of black holes - it was just so contrary to Eddington's deep understanding of the way space-time "ought" to be. It's about the passion the two men had for their science. And it took such a long time before it could be resolved observationally. "Rift" comes closer than "rival" I think. If you ask who Eddington's rivals were, I think more of James Jeans.
Adrian Pollock (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Editing Problems

I tried to fix a minor problem in the section about Eddington's denial of Chadacker (wrong spelling, but you know who I'm talking about) and I found I couldn't. Something is wrong with the editing function. I tried to edit that specific section, the biography section, and the whole page, but the sections between 1.1 Early Years and 2 Astronomy do not seem to exist. I have no idea as to how to fix this, but I think it needs to be done. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 128.255.107.38 (talk) 04:03, 5 April 2007 (UTC).