Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.
Arthur EddingtonRead
We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the idea of discovering new and mysterious aspects of existence through scientific exploration.
Arthur Eddington's quote emphasizes the excitement and curiosity that comes with scientific discovery, highlighting the notion that each new finding reveals more about the universe and our place within it. The 'strange footprint' symbolizes the unknown territories in science that provoke further investigation and understanding.
In practice
A scientist may quote this during a lecture on the importance of exploration in their field.
Whether in the intellectual pursuits of science or in the mystical pursuits of the spirit, the light beckons ahead, and the purpose surging in our nature responds.
The physical world is entirely abstract and without actuality apart from its linkage to consciousness.
It is one thing for the human mind to extract from the phenomena of nature the laws which it has itself put into them; it may be a far harder thing to extract laws over which it has no control. It is even possible that laws which have not their origin in the mind may be irrational, and we can never succeed in formulating them.
Whatever else there may be in our nature, responsibility toward truth is one of its attributes.
In the world of physics we watch a shadowgraph performance of the drama of familiar life. The shadow of my elbow rests on the shadow table as the shadow ink flows over the shadow paper. It is all symbolic, and as a symbol the physicist leaves it. ... The frank realisation that physical science is concerned with a world of shadows is one of the most significant of recent advances.
So far as physics is concerned, time's arrow is a property of entropy alone.
The sheer quantity of brain power that hurled itself voluntarily and quixotically into the search for new baseball knowledge was either exhilarating or depressing, depending on how you felt about baseball. The same intellectual resources might have cured the common cold, or put a man on Pluto.
When I am in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a drawing room full of dukes.
Most discoveries even today are a combination of serendipity and of searching.
Where ignorance lurks, so too do the frontiers of discovery and imagination
The main difficulty is finding an idea that really excites me. We live in an age when miracles are no longer miracles, and science and the future are losing their sense of mystery. For science fiction, or at least the type of science fiction I write, this development is almost fatal, but I'm still giving it all I've got.
Science operates in the natural, not the supernatural. In fact, I go so far as to state that there is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal.
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