Arthur Stanley Eddington

I do hope that in the not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.

Summary

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (1882 - 1944) was arguably the most important astrophysicist from the early 20th century.

He is famous for his work regarding the Theory of Relativity. Eddington wrote a number of articles which announced and explained Albert Einstein's Theory of General Relativity to the English-speaking world.

He made essential contributions to the concept of Biocentric Culture (see Vital Unconscious and Biocentric Principle).

Ideas

• He investigated the interior of stars through theory, and developed the first true understanding of stellar processes.
• He and Astronomer Royal Frank Dyson organized two expeditions to observe a solar eclipse in 1919 to make the first empirical test of Albert Einstein's theory: the measurement of the deflection of light by the sun's gravitational field. There is some evidence however that he believed so strongly in Einstein's theory of general relativity that he discounted data that clashed with it.
• Eddington was also heavily involved with the development of the first generation of general relativistic cosmological models (however, he rejected what would later be known as Big Bang cosmologies).
• Later he increasingly concentrated on what he called fundamental theory which was intended to be a unification of quantum theory, relativity and gravitation.