今天我们聊一聊英国科学家亚瑟·爱丁顿（Arthur Eddington）的名著《膨胀的宇宙》（The Expanding Universe）。艾丁顿的学术才华和科研领域横跨多个领域，他的身份也包括天文学家、物理学家和数学家等。他还是第一位用英语宣讲相对论的科学家，让全世界了解了这个伟大理论。1919年5月29日，他带领科考队在西非拍摄的日全食照片证实了太阳附近星星位置的变化符合广义相对论的“预测”，最终证实了相对论。
当时有一个段子：有记者问爱丁顿，听说全世界只有三个人真正懂得相对论，是这样吗？爱丁顿反问：谁是第三个人？当然，爱丁顿是不是真的完全理解相对论，还不得而知，但他的工作对世界科学史做出的贡献却无可争议。简单来说，爱因斯坦提出了相对论，爱丁顿证明了相对论。下面是两人历史性会面的珍贵合影：
下面，我摘录《膨胀的宇宙》（The Expanding Universe）中的一段文字分享给大家，也是我很喜欢的一段表述，特别是其中这句：About us is confusion and mess which there has not been time to sweep away. 大家慢慢体会吧！
Now I have told you ‘everything right as it fell out’.
How much of the story are we to believe?
Science has its showrooms and its workshops. The public today, I think rightly, is not content to wander round the showrooms where the tested products are exhibited; the demand is to see what is going on in the workshops. You are welcome to enter; but do not judge what you are by the standards of the showroom.
We have been going round a workshop in the basement of the building of science. The light is dim, and we stumble sometimes. About us is confusion and mess which there has not been time to sweep away. The workers and their machines are enveloped in murkiness. But I think that something is being shaped here — perhaps something rather big. I do not quite know what it will be when it is completed and polished for the showroom. But we can look at the present designs and the novel tools that are being used in its manufacture; we can contemplate too the little successes which make us hopeful.
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