People like to quote Albert Einstein. Some popular quotations include:
- WhySocialism
- A scientific theory should be as simple as possible, but no simpler (the EinsteinPrinciple)
- Example isn't another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.
- God does not play dice. (which shows that EvenEinsteinCanBeWrong if you believe in the Copenhagen interpretation)
- Subtle is the Lord, but malicious he is not. (A deep statement of his personal conviction that the universe is understandable.)
- You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
- To me, it suffices to wonder at these secrets and to attempt humbly to grasp with my mind a mere image of the lofty structure of all that there is.
- The world we have made as a result of the level of thinking we have done thus far creates problems that we cannot solve at the same level at which we have created them... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive.
- Imagination is more important than knowledge.
- Small is the number of them that see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.
- If you can't explain a concept to a 6 year-old, you don't fully understand it.
- It is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this sense alone, I am a truly religious man. I cannot conceive of a god who rewards and punishes his creatures, or as a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves.
- An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension. Such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. http://quotes.prolix.nu/Authors/?Albert_Einstein
Add your favorite Einstein quotation.
- Logic can take you from A to B but imagination can take you around the earth.
- Vat the 'ell am I supposed to write on this "Income Tax" form??
- Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT'S relativity.
- How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought independent of experience, is so admirably adapted to the objects of reality?
- The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious?. the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.
- That deep emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.
- My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds.
- It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion.
- I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and the noblest driving force behind scientific research.
- Not all that counts can be counted, and not all that can be counted, counts.
- Knowledge is that which remains when you have forgotten everything you learned in school.
- The wireless telegraph is not difficult to understand. The ordinary telegraph is like a very long cat. You pull the tail in New York, and it meows in Los Angeles. The wireless is the same, only without the cat.
- The only source of knowledge is experience.
Often incorrectly attributed to Einstein
How to introduce AlbertEinstein to an argument, sure to polarize:
There is a fact of the matter that a given event X happened before or after or simultaneously with an event Y? A guy named AlbertEinstein had an alternative viewpoint about that, as I recall.
If you like quotations, please visit the QuotePage for more, or see CategoryQuote or
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Einstein
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PeterSchickele explains relativity as follows: e = mbcs, which means energy equals matzo balls in chicken soup. Dispensing with the bs, we have e = mc^2, the superscript 2 indicating that this constitutes a square meal.
Trivia: AlbertEinstein is the real name of the writer/director known as AlbertBrooks?.
Frankly, I think EinsteinNameIsOverUsed?. Many of the quotes here are apocryphal. Sure, the theory of relativity is a great achievement, but remember that at the same time, NielsBohr, ErwinSchroedinger and many others were working on QuantumTheory, which have much more impact in our civilization, and is unknown to non-techie people (sigh in despair).
Remind yourself what Einstein's Nobel prize was for (hint: quanta figure prominantly!)
Although I agree that his name is overused, I have to object to your reasoning. First off, relativity has had at least as large an impact, both on physics and the day-to-day world. Secondly, much of the work of Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, etc. was building on the early QM work of Einstein. Einstein didn't like the direction that QM was going, but he did play a part in its origin. Out of the group you mention, Einstein was certainly the most powerful theorist; however, the others do deserve some recognition (Heisenberg has at least some popular recognition, but only through his cat :)
Schroedinger through his cat, Heisenberg for an incorrect version of his principle.
What I regret is the use of Einstein quotations (many apocryphal) about non-physics topics.
See also GeneralRelativity, SpecialRelativity, TheoreticalPhysics?, NielsBohr, ErwinSchroedinger
CategoryScientist | CategoryPhysics
Albert Einstein