“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”

— Nikola Tesla

"Radio Power Will Revolutionize the World" in Modern Mechanics and Inventions (July 1934)

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Nikola Tesla 125

Serbian American inventor 1856–1943

Robert L. Forward book Dragon's Egg

Source: Dragon's Egg (1980), Chapter 7, “Interaction” Section 6 (p. 255)

“What appear to be the most valuable aspects of the theoretical physics we have are the mathematical descriptions which enable us to predict events. These equations are, we would argue, the only realities we can be certain of in physics; any other ways we have of thinking about the situation are visual aids or mnemonics which make it easier for beings with our sort of macroscopic experience to use and remember the equations.”

Celia Green (1935) British philosopher

The Lost Cause (2003)

“But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Earliest source located is the book Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists by Robert Jungk (1958), p. 249, which says that Einstein made the comment during "a walk with Ernst Straus, a young mathematician acting as his scientific assistant at Princeton."
Variant: "Equations are more important to me, because politics is for the present, but an equation is something for eternity." From A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking (2005), p. 144 http://books.google.com/books?id=4Y0ZBW19n_YC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA144#v=onepage&q&f=false.
Earlier, Straus recalled the German version of the quote in Helle Zeit, Dunkle Zeit: In Memoriam Albert Einstein (1956) edited by Carl Seelig, p. 71. There the quote was given as Ja, so muß man seine Zeit zwischen der Politik und unseren Gleichungen teilen. Aber unsere Gleichungen sind mir doch viel wichtiger; denn die Politik ist für die Gegenwart da, aber solch eine Gleichung is etwas für die Ewigkeit.
Attributed in posthumous publications
Context: Yes, we now have to divide up our time like that, between politics and our equations. But to me our equations are far more important, for politics are only a matter of present concern. A mathematical equation stands forever.

“The intimate relation between interference and diffraction has its origin in the interference equation itself.”

F. J. Duarte (1954) Chilean-American physicist

in Dirac Optics, [F. J. Duarte, Tunable Laser Optics, Elsevier Academic, 2003, 0-12-222696-8, 37]

“Poetry is a sort of inspired mathematics, which gives us equations, not for abstract figures, triangles, squares, and the like, but for the human emotions. If one has a mind which inclines to magic rather than science, one will prefer to speak of these equations as spells or incantations; it sounds more arcane, mysterious, recondite.”

Ezra Pound book The Spirit of Romance

The Spirit of Romance (1910), p. 5

“Someone told me that each equation I included in the book would halve the sales. I therefore resolved not to have any equations at all. In the end, however, I did put in one equation, Einstein's famous equation, E = mc^2. I hope that this will not scare off half of my potential readers.”

Stephen Hawking book A Brief History of Time

A Brief History of Time (1988)

“Today we preach that science is not science unless it is quantitative. We substitute correlations for causal studies, and physical equations for organic reasoning. Measurements and equations are supposed to sharpen thinking, but, in my observation, they more often tend to make the thinking noncausal and fuzzy. They tend to become the object of scientific manipulation instead of auxiliary tests of crucial inferences.
Many - perhaps most - of the great issues of science are qualitative, not quantitative, even in physics and chemistry. Equations and measurements are useful when and only when they are related to proof; but proof or disproof comes first and is in fact strongest when it is absolutely convincing without any quantitative measurement.
Or to say it another way, you can catch phenomena in a logical box or in a mathematical box. The logical box is coarse but strong. The mathematical box is fine-grained but flimsy. The mathematical box is a beautiful way of wrapping up a problem, but it will not hold the phenomena unless they have been caught in a logical box to begin with.”

John R. Platt (1918–1992) American physicist

John R. Platt (1964) " Science, Strong Inference -- Proper Scientific Method (The New Baconians) http://256.com/gray/docs/strong_inference.html. In: Science Magazine 16 October 1964, Volume 146, Number 3642. Cited in: Gerald Weinberg (1975) Introduction to General Systems Thinking. p. 1, and in multiple other sources.

“all the standard equations of mathematical physics can be separated and solved in Kerr geometry.”

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (1910–1995) physicist

From Chandrasekhar's Nobel lecture, in his summary of his work on black holes; Republished in: D. G. Caldi, ‎George D. Mostow (1989) Proceedings of the Gibbs Symposium: Yale University, May 15-17, 1989 p. 230

“I don't suppose that applies so much to other physicists; I think it’s a peculiarity of myself that I like to play about with equations, just looking for beautiful mathematical relations which maybe don’t have any physical meaning at all. Sometimes they do.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

Interview with Dr. P. A. M. Dirac by Thomas S. Kuhn at Dirac's home, Cambridge, England, May 7, 1963 http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4575_3.html

“Equations are just the boring part of mathematics. I attempt to see things in terms of geometry.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

As quoted in Stephen Hawking: A Biography (2005) by Kristine Larsen, p. 43

“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”

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