Editing Arthur Eddington (section)

==Popular and philosophical writings==
Eddington wrote a parody of ''[[The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam]]'', recounting his 1919 solar eclipse experiment. It contained the following [[quatrain]]:<ref>{{cite book |title=The Life of Arthur Eddington |first=A. Vibert |last=Douglas |page=44 |publisher=Thomas Nelson and Sons |year=1956 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Bw0XAQAAMAAJ }}</ref>
<div style="text-align: center;">
{{poemquote
|Oh leave the Wise our measures to collate
           One thing at least is certain, LIGHT has WEIGHT,
One thing is certain, and the rest debate—
Light-rays, when near the Sun, DO NOT GO STRAIGHT.}}
</div>
In addition to his textbook ''[[List of publications in physics#General|The Mathematical Theory of Relativity]]'', during the 1920s and 30s, Eddington gave numerous lectures, interviews, and radio broadcasts on relativity, and later, quantum mechanics. Many of these were gathered into books, including ''The Nature of the Physical World'' and ''New Pathways in Science''. His use of literary allusions and humour helped make these difficult subjects more accessible. One familiar image drawn by Eddington consisted of his "two tables",<ref>Crane, T., and Mellor, H., [https://www.jstor.org/stable/2254959 There is No Question of Physicalism], ''Mind'', volume 99, No. 394 (April 1990), p. 189, accessed on 7 February 2025</ref> which represent a paradox concerned with what really exists: one table is the familiar and commonplace one, with properties of extension, colour, and permanence, it is "substantial" in the sense that it is constituted of "substance"; the other is his 'scientific' one, nothing but myriad minute particles in empty space: the table which "modern physics has by delicate test and remorseless logic assured me . . . is the only one which is really there ... wherever 'there' may be." He began the [[Gifford Lectures|lectures]] where he discussed this paradox in 1927 with an allusion to these two tables:{{quote|I have settled down to the task of writing these lectures and have drawn up my chairs to my two tables. Two tables! Yes; there are duplicates of every object about me - two tables, two chairs, two pens.}} The second table is mostly emptiness, with numerous [[electric charge]]s moving around at great speed, and this table is not "substantial" in any way. Eddington portrays the two tables as a recent innovation: physicists "used to borrow the raw material of [their] world from the familiar world", but for the new concepts, such as the [[electron]], [[quantum]] or potential, there is no "familiar counterpart to these things" in "the world of commonplace experience".<ref>Arthur Eddington (1928), "The Nature of the Physical World": [https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Extras/Eddington_Gifford/ Preface and Introduction] (from Eddington’s [[Gifford Lectures]], given in Edinburgh, January-March 1927): Eddington’s two tables, updated in March 2006, accessed on 19 February 2025</ref>

Eddington's books and lectures were immensely popular with the public, not only because of his clear exposition, but also for his willingness to discuss the philosophical and religious implications of the new physics. He argued for a deeply rooted philosophical harmony between scientific investigation and religious mysticism, and also that the positivist nature of relativity and quantum physics provided new room for personal religious experience and free will. Unlike many other spiritual scientists, he rejected the idea that science could provide proof of religious propositions.

His popular writings made him a household name in Great Britain between the world wars.