Support for Eddington’s Number and his Approach to Astronomy: Recent Developments in the Physics and Chemistry of the Human Brain

The astronomical contributions of Sir Arthur Eddington have sometimes been distracted by his philosophy and his derivation of ~1079 for the total number of elementary particles in the universe. However, assumptions employed to obtain the universal mass in a volume of ~1079 m3 produce values remarkably commensurate with ~1079 protons. The congruence between the calculated gravitational forces for rest mass photons separated by Planck’s length and potassium ions separated by the distance that maintains a neuron’s resting plasma membrane potential is also consistent with his assumption that universal structure is mirrored within consciousness and its extensions through sensitive instrumentation. Recent measurements of photon emissions during changes in membrane potentials and human beings engaging in visual imagery as well as the concept of entanglement suggest that careful reevaluation of Eddington’s approach in cosmology, astronomy, and astrophysics may be revealing.