Eddington's Search for a Fundamental Theory

Many people today are unaware that back in the 1930s, Sir Arthur Eddington, the celebrated astrophysicist, made great strides toward his own "theory of everything". In 1936 and 1946 Eddington's last two books were published. These works are strangely tentative and obscure, unlike his earlier lucid and authoritative works. This volume examines how Eddington came to write these uncharacteristic books--in terms of the physics and history of the day--and what value they have to modern physics. The result is an illuminating description of the development of theoretical physics in the first half of the twentieth century from a unique point of view. It will provide fascinating reading for scholars in the philosophy of science, theoretical physics, applied mathematics and the history of science.

• Eddington's first steps, back in the thirties, towards his own 'theory of everything'
• How the physics and history of the time helped shape Eddington's unique approach to theoretical physics
• Addresses Eddington's claim that the values of the fine-structure constant and the proton-electron mass-ratio can be calculated