Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist. He developed the general theory of relativity, one of the two pillars of modern physics.:274 Einstein's work is also known for its influence on the philosophy of science. Einstein is best known in popular culture for his mass–energy equivalence formula E = mc2. He received the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his "services to theoretical physics", in particular his discovery of the law of the photoelectric...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionScientist
Date of Birth14 March 1879
CityUlm, Germany
CountryGermany
I make it a rule not to clutter my mind with simple information that I can find in a book in five minutes.
Einstein was once asked how many feet are in a mile. Einstein's reply was "I don't know, why should I fill my brain with facts I can find in two minutes in any standard reference book?
Thus I came...to a deep religiosity, which, however, reached an abrupt end at the age of 12. Through the reading of popular scientific books I soon reached a conviction that much in the stories of the Bible could not be true....Suspicion against every kind of authority grew out of this experience...an attitude which has never left me.
I never commit to memory anything that can easily be looked up in a book
Freedom of teaching and of opinion in book or press is the foundation for the sound and natural development of any people.
Knowledge exists in two forms - lifeless, stored in books, and alive, in the consciousness of men. The second form of existence is after all the essential one; the first, indispensable as it may be, occupies only an inferior position.
There comes a point in your life when you need to stop reading other people's books and write your own.
Never memorise what you can look up in a book.
It is not so very important for a person to learn facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an education in a liberal arts college is not learning of many facts but the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.
The time comes in life when we have read enough. It's time to stop reading. It's time to lay down the books and write.
[Asked about a book in which 100 Nazi professors charged him with scientific error.] Were I wrong, one professor would have been quite enough.
Fortunate Newton, happy childhood of science. Nature to him was an open book. He stands before us strong, certain, and alone.
About Newton: Nature to him was an open book, whose letters he could read without effort.
I'm not an atheist. I don't think I can call myself a pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books.