Arthur Eddington

On 27th November, his last funeral rights were performed at the ‘Cambridge Crematorium’ (Cambridgeshire) and his body was cremated. Later, the remains were buried at the ‘Ascension Parish Burial Ground’ in his mother’s grave.

His last written book ‘Fundamental theory’ was published posthumously in 1946.

He was born to Arthur Henry Eddington and Sarah Ann Shout on 28th December, 1882, in Kendal, Cumbria (formerly known as Westmorland). When he was two years old, his father died in the ‘typhoid epidemic of 1884’. Arthur and his sister were raised by their mother.

The family shifted to the sea-side town of Weston-super-Mare, and Eddington was initially taught at home and then attended preparatory school. He enrolled at the ‘Brynmelyn School’ in the year 1893, wherein he excelled in all the subjects particularly, English and Mathematics.

He joined the ‘Owens College’, Manchester (now known as the ‘University of Manchester’) in 1898, with the help of a scholarship he received.

He took up a general course during his first year at the institute and later, took up physics as a discipline. There his teachers were renowned physicist Arthur Schuster and mathematician Horace Lamb, and both of them inspired him to a great extent.

Another mathematician who inspired him was J. W. Graham, whom he met during his stay at the ‘Dalton Hall’. He completed his graduation in 1902, with First Class Honours in B.Sc. with physics.

He earned his M.A. degree in 1905, and thereafter, carried on experimental work in the ‘Cavendish Laboratory’. At the same time, he taught mathematics to engineering students for a short period of time.

In 1906, he left Cambridge and moved to Greenwich, after he was chosen as chief assistant at the ‘Royal Greenwich Observatory’ to the ‘Astronomer Royal’.

He was engaged with the study of the parallax or the displacement in position of the ‘433 Eros’ asteroid on photographic plates.

In 1912, George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, who was the ‘Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy’ at the ‘Cambridge University’, died and the following year, Arthur was appointed to the post.

In 1914, following the death of astronomer Robert Ball, who had held the position of the ‘Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry’ at Cambridge, Eddington was appointed as the Director of the ‘Cambridge Observatory. The same year, he was made a ‘Fellow of the Royal Society’.

This learned scientist was involved with much research work which encompassed study of astronomy, physics, relativity, movements of stars and much more. However, the most significant of his investigations was his quest of establishing a ‘fundamental theory’. He wanted to build one single connection between many different disciplines such as gravitation, quantum theory, cosmology and relativity.

However, he could not complete his research on the fundamental theory and this ‘theory of everything’ remains a mystery in physics.