But Eddington did not fare well after that. He strongly opposed a theory about massive stars known as white dwarfs put forth by Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, but Eddington was proven wrong and Chandrasekhar later won a Nobel Prize for his work. Eddington finally lost all credibility when he first insisted that a physical constant (the fine structure constant) measured to be close to 1/136 must precisely equal 1/136 to make the math easier, but when later measurements suggested a value closer to 1/137 Eddington insisted that it must precisely equal to 1/137 instead. He was wrong both times. When World War II came to England, Eddington was a conscious objector. | But Eddington did not fare well after that. He strongly opposed a theory about massive stars known as white dwarfs put forth by Indian physicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, but Eddington was proven wrong and Chandrasekhar later won a Nobel Prize for his work. Eddington finally lost all credibility when he first insisted that a physical constant (the fine structure constant) measured to be close to 1/136 must precisely equal 1/136 to make the math easier, but when later measurements suggested a value closer to 1/137 Eddington insisted that it must precisely equal to 1/137 instead. He was wrong both times. When World War II came to England, Eddington was a conscious objector. |