thirdwise
Einstein and Stanley Eddington
From the late 1920s onward, Eddington's technical efforts were increasingly devoted to what later acquired the name of an unfinished but posthumously published book "Fundamental Theory" (1946). In this respect he was not unlike his contemporary Einstein (or for that matter Faraday, nearly 100 years earlier) in seeking a theory that would unify the electromagnetic interactions, governed by quantum mechanics, and gravity, described by general relativity. The practically unanimous verdict of scientific posterity is that Eddington, like Einstein, failed. The major difference between them, though, is that Einstein was well aware of his failure, whilst Eddington thought that he was on the way to succeeding. The basis for his optimism was his apparent derivation of some of the fundamental constants of physical science. Eddington thought he had a proof that the inverse of the fine structure constant (the dimensionless constant formed from the values h, c and e, that governs the strength of radiative interactions in atoms) is precisely 137. The currently accepted value is 137.04. He also thought that the number of protons in the universe could be derived exactly2[5]:
Einstein and Stanley Eddington
From the late 1920s onward, Eddington's technical efforts were increasingly devoted to what later acquired the name of an unfinished but posthumously published book "Fundamental Theory" (1946). In this respect he was not unlike his contemporary Einstein (or for that matter Faraday, nearly 100 years earlier) in seeking a theory that would unify the electromagnetic interactions, governed by quantum mechanics, and gravity, described by general relativity. The practically unanimous verdict of scientific posterity is that Eddington, like Einstein, failed. The major difference between them, though, is that Einstein was well aware of his failure, whilst Eddington thought that he was on the way to succeeding. The basis for his optimism was his apparent derivation of some of the fundamental constants of physical science. Eddington thought he had a proof that the inverse of the fine structure constant (the dimensionless constant formed from the values h, c and e, that governs the strength of radiative interactions in atoms) is precisely 137. The currently accepted value is 137.04. He also thought that the number of protons in the universe could be derived exactly2[5]: