今天我們聊一聊英國科學家亞瑟·爱丁顿（Arthur Eddington）的名著《膨脹的宇宙》（The Expanding Universe）。艾丁頓的學術才華和科研領域橫跨多個領域，他的身份也包括天文學家、物理學家和數學家等。他還是第一位用英語宣講相對論的科學家，讓全世界了解了這個偉大理論。1919年5月29日，他帶領科考隊在西非拍攝的日全食照片證實了太陽附近星星位置的變化符合廣義相對論的“預測”，最終證實了相對論。
當時有一個段子：有記者問愛丁頓，聽說全世界只有三個人真正懂得相對論，是這樣嗎？愛丁頓反問：誰是第三個人？當然，愛丁頓是不是真的完全理解相對論，還不得而知，但他的工作對世界科學史做出的貢獻卻無可爭議。簡單來說，愛因斯坦提出了相對論，愛丁頓證明了相對論。下面是兩人曆史性會面的珍貴合影：
下面，我摘錄《膨脹的宇宙》（The Expanding Universe）中的一段文字分享給大家，也是我很喜歡的一段表述，特別是其中這句：About us is confusion and mess which there has not been time to sweep away. 大家慢慢體會吧！
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.