Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Born in Kendal, England, in 1882, Arthur Stanley Eddington became one of the leading astrophysicists of the early twentieth century. He studied at Owens College, Manchester, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and went on to hold major posts in British astronomy, including Plumian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge and director of the Cambridge Observatory.

He is especially remembered for his work on the internal structure of stars and for the idea now known as the Eddington limit. Eddington also played a central role in making Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity famous in the English-speaking world, especially after the 1919 eclipse expedition that tested Einstein’s prediction about the bending of light.

Beyond his scientific research, Eddington was known for writing with unusual clarity and charm. Books such as Stars and Atoms, The Nature of the Physical World, and Space, Time and Gravitation helped general readers engage with some of the biggest ideas in modern science. He died in Cambridge in 1944.