The Nature of the Physical World Revisited

Abstract

It is a particular pleasure to have this opportunity to express a personal debt of thanks which I owe to Eddington’s book The Nature of the Physical World, published in 1928.¹ And I am sure that I am speaking for many of my generation who, in the 1930s, through this book, found inspiration and intellectual excitement in the new, rich and strange landscape of thought created by modern physics, as portrayed by Eddington. For me, reading this book as a high-school student (and its companion, The Expanding Universe, which I regard as a further chapter to The Nature of the Physical World, written in the same style and spirit, and which appeared five years later, in 1933²) was one of those unique virginal personal experiences magically opening windows on new vistas, and to be compared, to my mind, to seeing the sea or hearing chamber music for the first time. The book was certainly a major influence in my decision to study science, mathematics and physics at the University. My tattered copy of the first edition is a precious personal possession.