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41 " I forget if it was the Mathematician of Alexandria who said that geometry is beauty laid bare or the Father of Relativity who made the claim for physics,” Darger said. “She is, in either case, ravishing. "
― Michael Swanwick , Chasing the Phoenix (Darger and Surplus #2)
42 " The fine structure constant is undoubtedly the most fundamental pure (dimensionless) number in all of physics. It relates the basic constants of electromagnetism (the charge of the electron), relativity (the speed of light), and quantum mechanics (Planck's constant). "
43 " Electrons, when they were first discovered, behaved exactly like particles or bullets, very simply. Further research showed, from electron diffraction experiments for example, that they behaved like waves. As time went on there was a growing confusion about how these things really behaved ---- waves or particles, particles or waves? Everything looked like both.This growing confusion was resolved in 1925 or 1926 with the advent of the correct equations for quantum mechanics. Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have seen before. Your experience with things that you have seen before is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different. An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have seen before.There is one simplication at least. Electrons behave in this respect in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way….The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, " But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar; I will simply describe it. There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, " But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that. "
44 " It is worth noting that a wrong folkoric definition of an Inertial Frame in the Popular Science literature (even in text books) reads that 'it is a frame in uniform motion'. We know very well by now that the idea of motion requires a frame of reference, so that such a definition of an Inertial Frame has no meaning whatsoever, confusing the reader because it tacitly reaffirms the idea of absolute motion -- when the goal of every didactic exposition of Relativity Theory should be precisely the opposite. "
― Felix Alba-Juez , Who was Right: Ptolemy or Copernicus? (Relativity free of Folklore #4)
45 " Nobody is, was, will be born smart. But for you to be smart, and act smart, you need to think smart always. It is not a subject of your alma mater, it is the side and fries of what the genius within can comprehend, comply and captivate. In every beginning has a twelve kick start, promotion of the relativity of your new thinking, the story of a bunch of math and the spirit of a wonder apple. "
― Prince Akwarandu
46 " When he was seventy-four years old the Cretan novelist Nikos Kazantzakis began a book. He called it Report to Greco... Kazantzakis thought of himself as a soldier reporting to his commanding officer on a mortal mission—his life. ...Well, there is only one Report to Greco, but no true book... was ever anything else than a report. ... A true book is a report upon the mystery of existence... it speaks of the world, of our life in the world. Everything we have in the books on which our libraries are founded—Euclid's figures, Leonardo's notes, Newton's explanations, Cervantes' myth, Sappho's broken songs, the vast surge of Homer—everything is a report of one kind or another and the sum of all of them together is our little knowledge of our world and of ourselves. Call a book Das Kapital or The Voyage of the Beagle or Theory of Relativity or Alice in Wonderland or Moby-Dick, it is still what Kazantzakis called his book—it is still a " report" upon the " mystery of things." But if this is what a book is... then a library is an extraordinary thing. ...The existence of a library is, in itself, an assertion. ... It asserts that... all these different and dissimilar reports, these bits and pieces of experience, manuscripts in bottles, messages from long before, from deep within, from miles beyond, belonged together and might, if understood together, spell out the meaning which the mystery implies. ...The library, almost alone of the great monuments of civilization, stands taller now than it ever did before. The city... decays. The nation loses its grandeur... The university is not always certain what it is. But the library remains: a silent and enduring affirmation that the great Reports still speak, and not alone but somehow all together... "
47 " 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. "
― Albert Einstein
48 " Since the mathematicians have invaded the theory of relativity I do not understand it myself any more. "
49 " No I don't understand my husband's theory of relativity but I know my husband and I know he can be trusted. "
50 " If my theory of relativity is proven successful Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am 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. "
51 " Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out. "
52 " The rhythm of relations of color and size makes the absolute appear in the relativity of time and space. "
53 " Trying to understand the way nature works involves a most terrible test of human reasoning ability. It involves subtle trickery, beautiful tightropes of logic on which one has to walk in order not to make a mistake in predicting what will happen. The quantum mechanical and the relativity ideas are examples of this. "
54 " The theory of relativity worked out by Mr. Einstein, which is in the domain of natural science, I believe can also be applied to the political field. Both democracy and human rights are relative concepts - and not absolute and general. "
55 " Einstein was searching for String Theory. It not only reconciles General Relativity to Quantum Mechanics, but it reconciles Science and the Bible as well. "
56 " While the finish given to our picture of the world by the theory of relativity has already been absorbed into the general scientific consciousness, this has scarcely occurred to the same extent with those aspects of the general problem of knowledge which have been elucidated by the quantum theory. "
