Quotes for All
I count Maxwell and Einstein, Eddington and Dirac, among real mathematicians. The great modern achievements of applied mathematics have been in relativity and quantum mechanics, and these subjects are at present at any rate, almost as useless as the theory of numbers. G. H. Hardy
No one has yet discovered any warlike purpose to be served by the theory of numbers or relativity, and it seems unlikely that anyone will do so for many years. G. H. Hardy
I can accept the theory of relativity as little as I can accept the existence of atoms and other such dogmas. Ernst Mach
Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity? Artemis blinked. Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity. Eoin Colfer
No, I don’t understand my husband’s theory of relativity, but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted. Elsa Einstein
In Einstein’s general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn’t change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don’t break anything. Edward Witten
I claim that relativity and the rest of modern physics is not complicated. It can be explained very simply. It is only unusual or, put another way, it is contrary to common sense. Edward Teller
Scientists, therefore, are responsible for their research, not only intellectually but also morally. This responsibility has become an important issue in many of today’s sciences, but especially so in physics, in which the results of quantum mechanics and relativity theory have opened up two very different paths for physicists to pursue. They may lead us … Read more
In the ‘in-itself’ there is nothing of ‘causal connections’, of ‘necessity’, or of ‘psychological non-freedom’; there the effect does not follow the cause, there is no rule or ‘law’. It is we alone who have devised cause, sequence, for-each-other, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and when we project and mix this symbol … Read more
[John Wheeler] rejuvenated general relativity; he made it an experimental subject and took it away from the mathematicians Freeman Dyson