Quotes About Theory

I am not very impressed with theological arguments whatever they may be used to support. Such arguments have often been found unsatisfactory in the past. In the time of Galileo it was argued that the texts, 'And the sun stood still... and hasted not to go down about a whole day' (Joshua x. 13) and 'He laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not move at any time' (Psalm cv. 5) were an adequate refutation of the Copernican theory.

If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare me a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German, and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.

Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more.

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 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 simple datum of experience.

You make experiments and I make theories. Do you know the difference? A theory is something nobody believes, except the person who made it. An experiment is something everybody believes, except the person who made it. { Remark to scientist Herman Francis Mark }

It is the theory which decides what can be observed

A theory is more impressive the greater the simplicity of its premises, the more different are the kinds of things it relates, and the more extended its range of applicability.

The importance of C.F. Gauss for the development of modern physical theory and especially for the mathematical fundament of the theory of relativity is overwhelming indeed; also his achievement of the system of absolute measurement in the field of electromagnetism. In my opinion it is impossible to achieve a coherent objective picture of the world on the basis of concepts which are taken more or less from inner psychological experience.

When I am judging a theory, I ask myself whether, if I were God, I would have arranged the world in such a way.

La teoria è quando si sa tutto e niente funziona. La pratica è quando tutto funziona e nessuno sa il perché. Noi abbiamo messo insieme la teoria e la pratica: non c'è niente che funzioni... e nessuno sa il perché!

How did it come to pass that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity? The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up. Naturally I could go deeper into the problem than a child with normal abilities.

Every theory is killed sooner or later in that way. But if the theory has good in it, that good is embodied and continued in the next theory.

More careful reflection teaches us, however, that the special theory of relativity does not compel us to deny ether...To deny the ether is ultimately to assume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever.

Fundamental ideas play the most essential role in forming a physical theory. Books on physics are full of complicated mathematical formulae. But thought and ideas, not formulae, are the beginning of every physical theory.

there are no arbitrary constants ... nature is so constituted that it is possible logically to lay down such strongly determined laws that within these laws only rationally determined constants occur (not constants, therefore, whose numerical value could be changed without destroying the theory).

I sometimes ask myself how it came about that I was the one to develop the theory of relativity. The reason, I think, is that a normal adult never stops to think about problems of space and time. These are things which he has thought of as a child. But my intellectual development was retarded, as a result of which I began to wonder about space and time only when I had already grown up.

it is not difficult to understand why the general principle of relativity (on the basis of the equivalence principle) has led to a theory of gravitation.

The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks. How nonphysicists would scoff if they were able to follow the odd course of developments!

and I think (like you, by the way) that theory cannot be fabricated out of the results of observation, but that it can only be invented. [Letter to Karl Popper; 11 Sep 1939]

In gravitational fields there are no such thing as rigid bodies with Euclidean properties; thus the fictitious rigid body of reference is of no avail in the general theory of relativity. ... For this reason non-rigid reference-bodies are used, which are, as a whole, not only moving in any way whatsoever, but which also suffer alterations in form ad lib. during their motion... This non-rigid reference-body, ... might appropriately be termed a reference mollusc,...

Every true theorist is a kind of tamed metaphysicist.

However we select from nature a complex (of phenomena) using the criterion of simplicity, in no case will its theoretical treatment turn out to be forever appropriate...But I do not doubt that the day will come when that description (the general theory of relativity), too, will have to yield to another one, for reasons which at present we do not yet surmise. I believe that that this process of deepening the theory has no limits.

The [quantum] theory reminds me a little of the system of delusions of an exceedingly intelligent paranoiac.