Albert Einstein Physics Quotes & Sayings

Physics is an attempt conceptually to grasp reality as something that is considered to be independent of its being observed. In this sense one speaks of physical reality. — Albert Einstein

If stupidity were theoretical physics, then I would be Albert Einstein. — Alan Bradley

Albert Einstein, who discovered that a tiny amount of mass is equal to a huge amount of energy, which explains why, as Einstein himself so eloquently put it in a famous 1939 speech to the Physics Department at Princeton, 'You have to exercise for a week to work off the thigh fat from a single Snickers.' — Dave Barry

[Regarding mathematics,] there are now few studies more generally recognized, for good reasons or bad, as profitable and praiseworthy. This may be true; indeed it is probable, since the sensational triumphs of Einstein, that stellar astronomy and atomic physics are the only sciences which stand higher in popular estimation. — G.H. Hardy

How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?" - Albert Einstein — Shannon Lee Alexander

There is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality. — Albert Einstein

But in physics I soon learned to scent out the paths that led to the depths, and to disregard everything else, all the many things that clutter up the mind, and divert it from the essential. The hitch in this was, of course, the fact that one had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examination, whether one liked it or not. — Albert Einstein

If [quantum theory] is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science. — Albert Einstein

Nobody knows how the stand of our knowledge about the atom would be without him. Personally, Bohr is one of the amiable colleagues I have met. He utters his opinions like one perpetually groping and never like one who believes himself to be in possession of the truth. — Albert Einstein

Matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move. — Albert Einstein

When forced to summarize the general theory of relativity in one sentence: Time and space and gravitation have no separate existence from matter. — Albert Einstein

The belief in an external world independent of the perceiving subject is the basis of all natural science. Since, however, sense perception only gives information of this external world or of "physical reality" indirectly, we can only grasp the latter by speculative means. It follows from this that our notions of physical reality can never be final. We must always be ready to change these notions - that is to say, the axiomatic basis of physics - in order to do justice to perceived facts in the most perfect way. — Albert Einstein

Something deeply hidden had to be behind things. — Albert Einstein

Politics is more difficult than physics. — Albert Einstein

I still can't figure out what inspired me to do physics. But since I was nine or ten years old, I wanted to be like [Albert] Einstein. He was my hero. I knew no physicists. I knew no scientists. I had nobody around me. And I went to a convent that didn't even have higher mathematics and physics. I taught myself these subjects in order to get into university. — Vandana Shiva

Lederman is also a charismatic personality, famous among his colleagues for his humor and storytelling ability. One of his favorite anecdotes relates the time when, as a graduate student, he arranged to bump into Albert Einstein while walking the grounds at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. The great man listened patiently as the eager youngster explained the particle-physics research he was doing at Columbia, and then said with a smile, That is not interesting. — Sean Carroll

I cannot seriously believe in it [quantum theory] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance [spukhafte Fernwirkungen]. — Albert Einstein

The more I learn of physics, the more I am drawn to metaphysics. — Albert Einstein

It would of course be a great step forward if we succeeded in combining the gravitational field and the electromagnetic field into a single structure. Only so could the era in theoretical physics inaugurated by Faraday and James Clerk Maxwell be brought to a satisfactory close. — Albert Einstein

Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love. How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. — Albert Einstein

No one must think that Newton's great creation can be overthrown in any real sense by this [Theory of Relativity] or by any other theory. His clear and wide ideas will for ever retain their significance as the foundation on which our modern conceptions of physics have been built. — Albert Einstein

Understanding physics is child's play when compared to understanding child's play. — Albert Einstein

In quitting this strange world he has once again preceded me by a little. That doesn't mean anything. For those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, however tenacious. — Albert Einstein

Student: Dr. Einstein, Aren't these the same questions as last year's [physics] final exam?
Dr. Einstein: Yes; But this year the answers are different. — Albert Einstein

The highest court is in the end one's own conscience and conviction - that goes for you and for Einstein and every other physicist - and before any science there is first of all belief. — Max Planck

I was just more stubborn and more passionate than most about physics. — Albert Einstein

The key is to trust in your own divinity, to know that you are a piece of God, and that you are like what you came from. As a spiritual being, you have Divinity within. When Albert Einstein was asked about the impact of quantum physics, he said, "It's just all details, I just want to think like God thinks." And God thinks in terms of creating, kindness, beauty and goodness. — Wayne Dyer

This change in the conception of reality is the most profound and the most fruitful that physics has experienced since the time of Newton.

{Referring to James Clerk Maxwell's contributions to physics} — Albert Einstein

After long reflection in solitude and meditation, I suddenly had the idea, during the year 1923, that the discovery made by Einstein in 1905 should be generalised by extending it to all material particles and notably to electrons. — Louis De Broglie

If Albert Einstein, the last century's very poster boy for the cunning man and the wild-haired magician of science, knew one thing, then it was simply that there was always more to be known. He didn't pridefully condemn dreams of physics and incomplete theories. He pointed off into the future and named the unknown things as, in fact, spooky action at a distance. — Warren Ellis

No, this trick won't work ... How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love? — Albert Einstein

By the time I began my study of physics in the early 1970s, the idea of unifying gravity with the other forces was as dead as the idea of continuous matter. It was a lesson in the foolishness of once great thinkers. Ernst Mach didn't believe in atoms, James Clerk Maxwell believed in the aether, and Albert Einstein searched for a unified-field theory. Life is tough. — Lee Smolin

The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker. (1945) — Albert Einstein

Then, madam, they do nothing." Albert Einstein once said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." Economics is long overdue for the kind of radical shift in thinking that Einstein brought to his field of physics. Does Gross National Happiness represent such a breakthrough? — Eric Weiner

In an autobiographical essay published in 1946, Albert Einstein reflected on his days as a student of physics some fifty years earlier. He recalled his teachers with affection but, referring to exams, said, 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. — Alfie Kohn

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. — Yuval Ne'eman

[Max Planck] was one of the finest people I have ever known ... but he really didn't understand physics, [because] during the eclipse of 1919 he stayed up all night to see if it would confirm the bending of light by the gravitational field. If he had really understood [general relativity], he would have gone to bed the way I did — Albert Einstein

You are the only person I know who has the same attitude towards physics as I have: belief in the comprehension of reality through something basically simple and unified ... It seems hard to sneak a look at God's cards. But that He plays dice and uses 'telepathic' methods ... is something that I cannot believe for a single moment. — Albert Einstein

Politics is far more complicated than physics. — Albert Einstein

In the matter of physics, the first lessons should contain nothing but what is experimental and interesting to see. A pretty experiment is in itself often more valuable than twenty formulae extracted from our minds. — Albert Einstein

I find the idea quite intolerable that an electron exposed to radiation should choose of its own free will not only its moment to jump off but its direction. In that case I would rather be a cobbler, or even an employee in a gaming house, than a physicist. — Albert Einstein

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

The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
- "Old Man's Advice to Youth: 'Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'" LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955) p. 64 — Albert Einstein

I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it. — Albert Einstein

Galileo - the father of modern physics - indeed of modern science. — Albert Einstein

It should be possible to explain the laws of physics to a barmaid. — Albert Einstein

What physics looks for: The simplest possible system of thought which will bind together the observed facts. — Albert Einstein

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics. — Albert Einstein

Nothing happens until something moves. — Albert Einstein

For us physicists believe the separation between past, present, and future is only an illusion, although a convincing one. — Albert Einstein

Body and soul are not two different things, but only two different ways of perceiving the same thing. Similarly, physics and psychology are only different attempts to link our experiences together by way of systematic thought. — Albert Einstein

Thanks to my fortunate idea of introducing the relativity principle into physics, you (and others) now enormously overrate my scientific abilities, to the point where this makes me quite uncomfortable. — Albert Einstein

Only in mathematics and physics was I, through self-study, far beyond the school curriculum, and also with regard to philosophy as it was taught in the school curriculum. — Albert Einstein

By far the most important consequence of the conceptual revolution brought about in physics by relativity and quantum theory lies not in such details as that meter sticks shorten when they move or that simultaneous position and momentum have no meaning, but in the insight that we had not been using our minds properly and that it is important to find out how to do so. — Percy Williams Bridgman

I'm not a geius guy, even and Albert Einstein isn't and Tesla, nobody is genius. From where you will know what's the IQ for Albert or Tesla in their time there wasn't such test and how such test can show how clever are you in case that the most questions are math, physics and mainly this how this two subjects will show that you are clever or dumb?? I strongly doubt about this if I know the answer sof the test and I fill it right so I must be the world clever man? No, I don't think so - That's bullshit!
That I have written 8 books and now I'm working on some other books this doesn't make me clever, the most stuff are just search from the internet and put, the other is thoughts from me. Like thinking on some questions and that's all! — Deyth Banger

Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of general relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: 'Who's the third? — Arthur Stanley Eddington

If you wish to learn from the theoretical physicist anything about the methods which he uses, I would give you the following piece of advice: Don't listen to his words, examine his achievements. For to the discoverer in that field, the constructions of his imagination appear so necessary and so natural that he is apt to treat them not as the creations of his thoughts but as given realities. — Albert Einstein