The Eddington Enigma

Rating:
Summary: Good, but brief
Review: Eddington was an astrophysicist that did acclaimed work on the physics of stars, and attempted a very ambitious "theory of everything" that, none too differently from many others, did not receive favorable attention. In addition, he developed a philosophy of science that has been largely ignored, perhaps not surprisingly because it can't be a popular idea that much science attributed to the objective world actually is about scientists and the limitations of the thinking mind. The "enigma" of the title is perhaps that Eddington became fascinated by very general issues of philosophy, instead of sticking to hard science where footing is clearer, or perhaps that a man with an outstanding reputation and high public visibility could so completely fade from public view.

This book is helpful in describing Eddington's life, at least from a public viewpoint, and in placing his astronomical and relativity contributions in a modern context. It also describes his "theory of everything" in enough detail to satisfy a lay reader, but in my view does not explain clearly its poor reception. The clearest statement of its shortcomings is that it assumed that certain constants of physical laws were well-defined numbers independent of measurement. Unfortunately, the deduced values are slightly different from today's measured values. However, the real issue is probably that no one understood how to generalize his approach, and so fashionable thought drifted off elsewhere. References are supplied to search further.

The philosophical views of Eddington are touched upon, but are not a strong interest of the author. This material is not put into modern context, nor critiqued in any detail. The author appears to think that this work was an aberration of mind inspired by a need to reconcile a Quaker upbringing with a scientific mentality. The "World of Mathematics" contains a much clearer, more convincing and more involving account by Eddington himself.

For me, this book filled in a lot of interesting detail, expanded my understanding of Eddington's astronomical and relativity thinking, connected Eddington's life with his contemporaries, and provided a good starting point to look further. Not a bad accomplishment, and quite readable.