Albert Einstein on Science

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change."

"A truly rational theory would allow us to deduce the elementary particles and not be forced to state them a priori."

"Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity, I do not understand it myself anymore."

"I refuse to make money out of my science. My laurel is not for sale like so many bales of cotton."

"Philosophy is empty if it isn't based on science. Science discovers, philosophy interprets."

"Then I would have felt sorry for the dear Lord. The theory is correct."

"Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed."

"Physics is essentially an intuitive and concrete science. Mathematics is only a means for expressing the laws that govern phenomena."

"It appears dubious whether a field theory can account for the atomistic structure of matter and radiation as well as of quantum phenomena."

"For scientific endeavor is a natural whole the parts of which mutually support one another in a way which, to be sure, no one can anticipate."

"The state is made for man, not man for the state. And in this respect science resembles the state."

"A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it."

"The most beautiful fate of a physical theory is to point the way to the establishment of a more inclusive theory, in which it lives on as a limiting case."

"Since others have explained my theory, I can no longer understand it myself."

"Science is international but its success is based on institutions, which are owned by nations. If therefore, we wish to promote culture we have to combine and to organize institutions with our own power and means."

"The most important tool of the theoretical physicist is his wastebasket."

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"On quantum theory I use up more brain grease than on relativity."

"Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that some spirit is manifest in the laws of the universe, one that is vastly superior to that of man."

"Matter is real to my senses, but they aren't trustworthy. If Galileo or Copernicus had accepted what they saw, they would never have discovered the movement of the earth and planets."

"Theory of relativity in 4-letter words or shorter"

"It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience."

"One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year."

"Development of Western Science is based on two great achievements, the invention of the formal logical system by the Greek philosophers, and the discovery of the possibility to find out causal relationships by systematic experiment . In my opinion one has not to be astonished that the Chinese sages have not made these steps. The astonishing thing is that these discoveries were made at all."

"I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, financed by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong."

"During that year in Aarau the question came to me: If one runs after a light wave with light velocity, then one would encounter a time-independent wavefield. However, something like that does not seem to exist! This was the first juvenile thought experiment which has to do with the special theory of relativity. Invention is not the product of logical thought, even though the final product is tied to a logical structure."

"I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of sudden a thought occurred to me: If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation."

"The development during the present century is characterized by two theoretical systems essentially independent of each other: the theory of relativity and the quantum theory. The two systems do not directly contradict each other; but they seem little adapted to fusion into one unified theory."