Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington O.M., F.R.S. (1882-1944) was the Plumian Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge from 1913 to 1944. He became famous for providing evidence for General Relativity in 1919 on an eclipse expedition. He was also a great popularizer of relativity through popular books and lectures. He was Director of the Cambridge Observatory from 1914 to 1944 and is remembered by astronomers for his mass luminoisity law for stars. A complex figure, with sometimes unorthodox ideas, Eddington was a figure who contributed to many areas of public debate outside of his own specialist field. Here he is pictured with Einstein in 1930 sitting outside the Cambridge Observatory building.
Eddington Memorial Lectures have been held since 1947 and continue to this day. Here is a listing of all the Lectures so far. Some of the early ones were published as booklets by Cambridge University Press and these are marked 'CUP' along with their shelf location in the IoA Library.
More information on the recent Eddington Lectures can be found on our Talks Archive
1
A.D. Ritchie
Reflections on the philosophy of Sir Arthur Eddington
1947 November 4
CUP
(11/RIT)
2
Lawrence Pearsall Jacks
Sir Arthur Eddington: man of science and mystic
1948 November 2
CUP
(3/EDD/J)
3
George B. Jeffery
The unity of knowledge: some reflections on the University of Cambridge and London
1949 November 1
CUP
4
Ronald Aylmer Fisher
Creative aspects of natural law
1950 November 2
CUP
5
E.T. Whittaker
Eddington's principle in the philosophy of science
1951 August 9
CUP
(11/WHI)
6
Martin Johnson
Time and universe for the scientific conscience
1952 November 4
CUP
7
Henry Habberley Price
Some aspects of the conflict between science and religion
1953 November 3
CUP
8
Herbert Dingle
The sources of Eddington's philosophy
1954 November 2
CUP
9
Richard B. Braithwaite
An empricist's view of the nature of religious belief
1955 November 22
CUP
10
Herbert George Wood
Thought, life and time, as reflected in science and poetry
1957 February 19
CUP
11
Charles Alfred Coulson
Science and the idea of god
1958 April 21
CUP
12
Walter Russell Brain
Science philosophy and religion
1959 February 24
CUP
13
Michael Polanyi
Beyond nihilism
1960 February 16
CUP
14
William Homan Thorpe
Biology, psychology and belief
1960 November 3
CUP
15
Cyril N. Hinselwood
The vision of nature
1961 November 10
CUP
R.b.2944
16
William Calvert Kneale
On having a mind
1962 November 9
CUP
17
Robert Henry Thouless
Mind and consciousness in experimental psychology
1963 November 29
CUP
18
Kathleen Lonsdale
I believe ...
1964 November 6
CUP
19
John Carew Eccles
The brain and the unity of conscious experience.
1965 October 15
CUP
20
James Bryant Conant
Scientific principles and moral conduct
1966 November 15
CUP
21
Donald MacCrimmon Mackay
Freedom of action in a mechanistic universe
1967 November 17
CUP
22
Georg Henrik von Wright
Time, change and contradiction
1968 November 1
CUP
23
William Grey Walter
Observations on man, his frame, his duty and his expectations
1969 November 7
CUP
24
Stephan Korner
Abstraction in science and morals
1971 February 2
CUP
25
John Hick
Biology and the soul
1972 February 1
CUP
26
Joseph Burtt Hutchinson
The challenge of the Third World (series of three)
1974 November 7; 14; 21
CUP
27
Maurice Wilkins
Science and the devine. Anhistorical approach to problems of science and the world today (series of four)
1978 May
28
Charles Webster
From Paracelsus to Newton (series of three)
1981
CUP
29
A. Brian Pippard
The invincible ignorance of science. The mind matter chasm
1988 January 28
Published by the author in Contemporary Physics Vol. 29 (1988) 343-405
30
Mary Warnock
The value of life
1989 January 26
Beleived to be published by the author in a book of her talks and speeches
31
Amartya Sen
Objectivity and the subject. Scientific understanding and subjective perceptions of ill-health, poverty and women's inequalities
1990 May
32
Roger Penrose
The Emperor's new mind
1991 February
33
Francois Jacob
Science and imagination
1992 October 30
34
Max Perutz
Living molecules
1994 November 24
35
Rt. Hon. The Lord Hoffmann
Law and the scarcity of medical resources
1999 May 7
36
Peter Lipton
2001 February
Andrea Ghez (University of California, Los Angeles)
Bringing our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole and its Environs into Focus with Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics
2009 March 12
Peter Smith (Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona)
Searching for Life on Mars
2010 March 11
Shrinivas R. Kulkarni (California Institute of Technology)
Astronomy: A Subject on the Cusp
2011 March 10
Julianne Dalcanton (University of Washington)
Galaxies Viewed as Collections of Individual Stars
2012 March 8
Phil Armitage (Colorado)
The Turbulent Environment of Planet Formation
2013 March 10
Lisa Kewley (ANU)
Galaxy Evolution in 3-D
2014 February 13
Pieter van Dokkum (Yale University)
Ghostly Galaxies: exploring the universe with the Dragonfly Telescope
2015 March 12
Eric Ford (Penn State University)
Kepler, the Architectures of Exoplanet Systems & Implications for Planet Formation
2016 March 10
Karin Oberg (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
The Chemistry of Planet Formation and the Making of Habitable Planets
2018 March 8
Amanda Karakas (Monash)
Heavy elements in red giant stars
2019 March 7
2020/2021 Mansi Kasliwal (CalTech) (RAS only- https://ras.ac.uk/events-and-meetings/ras-meetings/ordinary-meeting-3) - Our Dynamic Infrared Sky - 2021 February 12
Giovanna Tinetti (UCL)
A Chemical Survey of Planets in our Galaxy
2022 February 10
Nicholeen Viall (NASA, GSFC)
The Grand Challenge Questions of Solar Wind Physics
2023 March 9