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What happens when a great scientist integrates science with his deeply held religious beliefs?
The groundbreaking work and thoughts of one of the most influential scientists demonstrates not only how science and faith can support and assist each other, but how spiritual beliefs can contribute to innovative ideas and new discoveries.
Sir Arthur Eddington is one of the most famous names in science. His accomplishments are many, but perhaps he is most famous for providing the first empirical proof of Einstein’s theory of relativity which predicted that light could actually be warped by mass. The British astronomer traveled to South America in 1919 to observe a total solar eclipse and showed that starlight coming from behind the sun curved in response to the mass of the sun.
Eddington was a popular and effective explainer of the rapidly changing science of the day. He quickly grasped not only the paradigm-shifting nature of Einstein’s relativity, but also of quantum physics just as the remarkable findings were emerging. He considered the discovery of the indeterminate nature of reality in 1927 by Heisenberg to be perhaps the most profound of all scientific discoveries. To him it fundamentally changed our understanding of the physical world and opened the door to broader understanding and acceptance of the “unseen” or spiritual world.
