“The problem with general relativity is that the principles are pretty simple and the computations are always ugly.”

— Leonard Susskind

General Relativity Lecture 5, YouTube, published 30 October 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quWN1V9jOf0 (quote at 1:21:46 of 1:39:06)

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Leonard Susskind 5

American physicist 1940

Paul DiLascia (1959–2008) American software developer

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“Some of the effects predicted by the theory [of loop quantum gravity] appear to be in conflict with one of the principles of Einstein's special theory of relativity… that the speed of light is a universal constant. …Photons of higher energy travel slightly slower than low-energy photons. …the principle of [general] relativity is preserved but Einstein's special theory of relativity requires modification. …A photon can have an energy-dependent speed without violating the principle of [general] relativity!”

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Ian McDonald book River of Gods

Source: River of Gods (2006), Ch. 2 (p. 27).

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php.devel Mailing List, October 2002 http://osdir.com/ml/php.devel/2002-10/msg00704.html

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Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

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“Principle of causality is fundamental to human thinking, and it has been observed experimentally that this assumption leads to complex hypothesis formation by human subjects attempting to solve comparatively simple problems involving a causal randomly generated events”

Brian R. Gaines (1938) British computer scientist

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“The miracle of physics that I'm talking about here is something that was actually known since the time of Einstein's general relativity; that gravity is not always attractive. Gravity can act repulsively. Einstein introduced this in 1916… in the form of the cosmological constant, and the original motivation of modifying the equations of general relativity to allow this was because Einstein thought that the universe was static, and he realized that ordinary gravity would cause the universe to collapse if it was static. …The fact that general relativity can support this gravitational repulsion, still being consistent with all the principles that general relativity incorporates, is the important thing which Einstein himself did discover..”

Alan Guth (1947) American theoretical physicist and cosmologist

Lecture 1: Inflationary Cosmology: Is Our Universe Part of a Multiverse? Part I.
The Early Universe (2012)

“It [science] has as its highest principle and most coveted aim the solution of the problem to condense all natural phenomena which have been observed and are still to be observed into one simple principle, that allows the computation of past and more especially of future processes from present ones. …Amid the more or less general laws which mark the achievements of physical science during the course of the last centuries, the principle of least action is perhaps that which, as regards form and content, may claim to come nearest to that ideal final aim of theoretical research.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

As quoted by Morris Kline, Mathematics and the Physical World (1959) Ch. 25: From Calculus to Cosmic Planning, pp. 441–42.

“There is no problem so complicated that you can't find a very simple answer to it if you look at it right … Or put it another way, "The future of computer power is pure simplicity."”

Douglas Adams book The Salmon of Doubt

The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

“no matter how big you think your problems are, someone else's problems could always be bigger, which makes yours relatively small!”

Brenda Jackson (1953) American writer

Source: Perfect Timing

“The problem with general relativity is that the principles are pretty simple and the computations are always ugly.”

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