The Internal Constitution Of The Stars: Eddington Masterpieces #5 (Eddington Masterpieces (Illustrated)) by Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington (PDF)

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This is Arthur Eddington’s classical work upon the structure of stars. ‘The Internal Constitution of the Stars’ was a major advance in the development of modern theoretical astrophysics when Eddington wrote it in 1926. He effectively created the discipline of the structure and the evolution of the stars, and also recognized and established the basic elements of our present understanding of the subject. As H. N. Russell wrote in 1945: ‘This volume has every claim to be regarded as a masterpiece of the first rank’.The physical and mathematical reasoning is deep, but it is possible to enjoy much of the flavor of the book even without following everything. The tidbits given below illustrate Eddington’s beautiful and mellifluous English style.WARNING: Due to the complexity of the typesetting, the only way to reproduce this book has been as a series of scanned page images. On a portable electronic reader they come out pretty small, but they are legible. The smaller your screen is, the smaller they will appear. On a proper desktop computer running the app, they are perfectly fine.TIDBITS:There are limits to our toleration of change of familiar symbols. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet; but the equation pω=U2-U1 would lack the familiar savour of the quantum relation. At first sight it would seem that the deep interior of the sun and stars is less accessible to scientific investigation than any other region of the universe… The problem does not appear so hopeless when misleading metaphor is discarded… {intimation of black holes, which he does not follow up}… It is as though nature had a standard model before her in forming the stars, and (except for occasional lapses of vigilance) would not tolerate much deviation.(In reference to opacity of the stellar material) The consumption of food by the hungry hunter depends on his skill in catching it; the consumption by the prosperous citizen depends on the strength of his digestion.(In reference to the use and abuse of mathematics in physics) In any natural problem the actual conditions are of extreme complexity and the first step is to select those which have an essential influence on the result – in short, to get hold of the right end of the stick. The correct use of this insight, whether before or after the mathematical problem has been formulated, is a faculty to be cultivated, not a vicious propensity to be hidden from the public eye… Cases could be cited where physicists have been led astray through inattention to mathematical rigor; but these are rare compared with the mathematicians’ misadventures through lack of physical insight.Imagine a body continually losing heat but with insufficient energy to grow cold!Does energy issue freely from matter at 40,000,000° as steam issues from water at 100°?The helium which we handle must have been put together at some time and some place. We do not argue with the critic who urges that the stars are not hot enough for this process; we tell him to go and find a hotter place.The history of scientific progress teaches us to keep an open mind. I do not think we need feel greatly concerned as to whether these rude attempts to explore the interior of a star have brought us to anything like the final truth. We have learned something of the varied interests involved. We have seen how closely the manifestations of the greatest bodies in the universe are linked to those of the smallest. The partial results already obtained encourage us to think that we are not far from the right track. Especially do we realize that the transcendently high temperature in the interior of a star is not an obstacle to investigation but rather tends to smooth away difficulties. At terrestrial temperatures matter has complex properties which are likely to prove most difficult to unravel; but it is reasonable to hope that in a not too distant future we shall be competent to understand so simple a thing as a star.

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