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.
| Title | Date | Speaker |
|---|---|---|
| The Dawn of Galaxy-scale Gravitational Wave Astronomy | 7 March 2024 | Stephen Taylor (Vanderbilt University) |
| The grand challenge questions of solar wind physics | 9 March 2023 | Nicholeen Viall (NASA, GSFC) |
| A chemical survey of planets in our galaxy | 10 February 2022 | Giovanna Tinetti (UCL) |
| Our dynamic infrared sky | 12 February 2021 | Mansi Kasliwal (CalTech) |
| Heavy elements in red giant stars | 7 March 2019 | Amanda Karakas (Monash) |
| The Chemistry of Planet Formation and the Making of Habitable Planets | 8 March 2018 | Karin I. Öberg (Harvard University) |
| Physical Manifestations of Evolution, Regularity and Chaos In and Around Our Galaxy | 9 March 2017 | Kathryn Johnston (Columbia University) |
| Kepler, the Architectures of Exoplanet Systems & Implications for Planet Formation | 10 March 2016 | Eric Ford (Penn State University) |
| Ghostly Galaxies: exploring the universe with the Dragonfly Telescope | 12 March 2015 | Pieter Van Dokkum (Yale) |
| Galaxy Evolution in 3-D | 13 February 2014 | Professor Lisa Kewley (ANU) |
| The Turbulent Environment of Planet Formation | 7 March 2013 | Phil Armitage (Colorado) |
| Galaxies Viewed as Collections of Individual Stars | 8 March 2012 | Professor Julianne Dalcanton (University of Washington) |
| Astronomy: A Subject on the Cusp | 10 March 2011 | Shri Kulkarni (Caltech) |
| Searching for Life on Mars | 11 March 2010 | Peter Smith (Lunar and Planetary Lab, University of Arizona) |
| Bringing our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole and its Environs into Focus with Laser Guide Star Adaptive Optics | 12 March 2009 | Andrea Ghez (University of California) |
| No. 36. Title To Be Added | February 2001 | Peter Lipton |
| No. 35. Law and the scarcity of medical resources | 7 May 1999 | Rt. Hon. The Lord Hoffmann |
| No. 34 Living molecules | 24 November 1994 | Max Perutz |
| No. 33 Science and Imagination | 30 October 1992 | Francois Jacob |
| No. 32 The Emperor's New Mind | February 1991 | Roger Penrose |
| No. 31 Objectivity and the Subject. Scientific understanding and subjective perceptions of ill-health, poverty and women's inequalities | May 1990 | Amartya Sen |
| No. 30 The value of life | 26 January 1989 | Mary Warnock |
| No. 29 The invincible ignorance of science. The mind matter chasm | 28 January 1988 | A. Brian Pippard |
| No. 28 From Paracelsus to Newton (series of three) CUP |
1981 | Charles Webster |
| No. 27 Science and the devine. Anhistorical approach to problems of science and the world today (series of four) |
May 1978 | Maurice Wilkins |
| No. 26 The challenge of the Third World (series of three) CUP |
7, 14, 21 November 1974 | Joseph Burtt Hutchinson |
| No. 25 Biology and the soul CUP |
1 February 1972 | John Hick |
| No. 24 Abstraction in science and morals CUP |
2 February 1972 | Stephan Korner |
| No. 23 Observations on man, his frame, his duty and his expectations CUP |
7 November 1969 | William Grey Walter |
| No. 22 Time, change and contradiction\ CUP |
1 November 1968 | Georg Henrik von Wright |
| No. 21 Freedom of action in a mechanistic universe CUP |
17 November 1967 | Donald MacCrimmon Mackay |
| No. 20 Scientific principles and moral conduct CUP |
15 November 1966 | James Bryant Conant |
| No. 19 The brain and the unity of conscious experience CUP |
15 October 1965 | John Carew Eccles |
| No. 18 I believe ... CUP |
6 November 1964 | Kathleen Lonsdale |
| No. 17 Mind and consciousness in experimental psychology CUP |
29 November 1963 | Robert Henry Thouless |
| No. 16 On having a mind CUP |
9 November 1962 | William Calvert Kneale |
| No. 15 The vision of nature CUP (R.b.2944) |
10 November 1961 | Cyril N. Hinselwood |
| No. 14 Biology, psychology and belief CUP |
3 November 1960 | William Homan Thorpe |
| No. 13 Beyond nihilism CUP |
16 February 1960 | Michael Polanyi |
| No. 12 Science philosophy and religion CUP |
24 February 1959 | Walter Russell Brain |
| No. 11 Science and the idea of god CUP |
21 April 1958 | Charles Alfred Coulson |
| No. 10 Thought, life and time, as reflected in science and poetry CUP |
19 February 1957 | Herbert George Wood |
| No. 9 An empiricist's view of the nature of religious belief CUP |
22 November 1955 | Richard B. Braithwaite |
| No. 8 The sources of Eddington's philosophy CUP |
2 November 1954 | Herbert Dingle |
| No. 7 Some aspects of the conflict between science and religion CUP |
3 November 1953 | Henry Habberley Price |
| No. 6 Time and universe for the scientific conscious CUP |
4 November 1952 | Martin Johnson |
| No. 5 Eddington's principle in the philosophy of science CUP (11/WHI) |
9 August 1951 | E.T. Whittaker |
| No. 4 Creative aspects of natural law CUP |
2 November 1950 | Ronald Aylmer Fisher |
| No. 3 The unity of knowledge: some reflections on the University of Cambridge and London CUP |
1 November 1949 | George B. Jeffery |
| No. 2 Sir Arthur Eddington: man of science and mystic CUP (3/EDD/J) |
2 November 1948 | Lawrence Pearsall Jacks |
| No. 1 Reflections on the philosophy of Sir Arthur Eddington CUP (11/RIT) |
4 November 1947 | A.D. Ritchie |