Quotes About Relativity

most things are right or wrong only in their backgrounds; few things are good or evil in themselves.

Relativity and quantum mechanics have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which 'real' reality can be seen; we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels.

Such self-referential truths are valid for only one person at a time, or one group of persons, and do not refer to anything but the nervous system or nervous systems of those who espouse them. This does not mean that they are false, but only that they are even more relative (and subjective) than legal proofs, for instance, and that they are very, very different from scientific or mathematical truths.

I have suggested in other books that Einstein's physical relativity is just a special case of a more general neurological relativity: the observer, with or without instruments, always remains co-creator of the observation. To quote Nietzsche again: We are all greater artists than we realize.

2Nor does an iron bar possess the essence of hardness. It merely seems hard to humans, but might seem comparatively soft or pliable to a muscular 500-pound gorilla. ~•~

Operationalism, created by Nobel physicist Percy W. Bridgman, attempts to deal with the common sense objections to Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, and owes a great deal to pragmatism and instrumentalism. Bridgman explicitly pointed out that common sense derives unknowingly from some tenets of ancient philosophy and speculation — particularly Platonic Idealism and Aristotelian essentialism — and that this philosophy assumes many axioms that now appear either untrue or unprovable.

The Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics, created by Niels Bohr (another Nobel winner), says much the same as operationalism, in even more radical language. According to Bohr, common sense and traditional philosophy both have failed to account for the data of Quantum Mechanics (and of Relativity) and we need to speak a new language to understand what physics has discovered.

Consider the child's riddle, Where does your fist go when you open your hand? This can be answered by thinking like Einstein, although on a less cosmic scale. That is, the child must first realize that the fist is not a thing but a relationship (a coherent synergy Bucky Fuller would say). It is not a mere etymological felicity to say that thinking of relations is the first step to thinking Relativistically.

To state our major thesis again in different words, Uncertainty, Indeterminacy and Relativity appear in modern science for the same reason they appear in modern logic, modern art, modern literature, modern philosophy and even modern theology. In this century, the human nervous system has discovered its own creativity, and its own limitations.

Since critics appear notoriously dogmatic and pugnacious, it seems that meaning (a)—admitting relativity—is not what they mean. Is criticism then a form of theology (the only other field that claims access to the mind of God?) Or are we to take it that they are all Platonists?

A moment was not a single moment at all, but rather an infinite number of different amounts depending on who was seeing things and how.

Einstein's law of time warps says that Everyting likes to live where it is going to age more slowly, and gravity pulls it there.

How the hell do you call Russia from Greece? It's like trying to figure out rela-fucking-tivity. And still, I gave it several shots. Of Ouzo. Seriously, you have no idea how much your situation is affecting me. I've been stress-eating my way across Greece." I frowned. "You don't stress-eat—" "Cock, Natalie. I was stress-eating cock. There, you made me say it, happy now?" "Opa!

One man's theology is another man's belly laugh.

The total number of people who understand relativistic time, even after eighty years since the advent of special relativity, is still much smaller than the number of people who believe in horoscopes.

there is actually no fixed spot in the universe for measuring time.

There is nothing good or bad, except by comparison" (209) - "Effort is Everything" by Bud Selig

There's nothing good or bad, except by comparison" (210) - Bud Selig "Effort is Everything

Everyone has learning difficulties, because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult.

In principle, time would come to a halt for an object moving at the speed of light.

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.

We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

The separation between any two events in the history of a particle shall be a maximum or minimum when measured along its world line.

Our subjective experience of time is highly variable. We all know that days can pass like weeks and months can feel like years, and that the opposite can be just as true: A month or year can zoom by in what feels like no time at all.