Eddington & Uncertainty

Abstract

Sir Arthur Eddington is considered one of the greatest astrophysicist of the twentieth century and yet he gained a stigma when, in the 1930s, he embarked on a quest to develop a unified theory of gravity and quantum mechanics. His attempts ultimately proved fruitless and he was unfortunately partially shunned by some physicists in the latter portion of his career. In addition some historians have been less than kind to him regarding this portion of his work. However, detailed analysis of how this work got started shows that Eddington's theories were not as outlandish as they are often purported to be. His entire theory rested on the use of quantum mechanical methods of uncertainty in the reference frames of relativity. Though the work was ultimately not fruitful, in hindsight it did foreshadow several later results in physics and his methods were definitely rigorous. In addition, his philosophy regarding determinism and uncertainty was actually fairly orthodox for his time. This work begins by looking at Eddington's life and philosophy and uses this as a basis to explore his work with uncertainty.Comment: new version to appear in Physics in Perspective (either Sept. or Dec. issue