“The theoretician is forced, ever more, to allow himself to be directed by purely mathematical, formal points of view in the search for theories, because the physical experience of the experimenter is not capable of leading us up to the regions of the highest abstraction.”

—  Albert Einstein

Ideas and Opinions (1954), pp. 238–239; quoted in "Einstein's Philosophy of Science" http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/einstein-philscience/
1950s
Context: The theory of relativity is a beautiful example of the basic character of the modern development of theory. That is to say, the hypotheses from which one starts become ever more abstract and more remote from experience. But in return one comes closer to the preeminent goal of science, that of encompassing a maximum of empirical contents through logical deduction with a minimum of hypotheses or axioms. The intellectual path from the axioms to the empirical contents or to the testable consequences becomes, thereby, ever longer and more subtle. The theoretician is forced, ever more, to allow himself to be directed by purely mathematical, formal points of view in the search for theories, because the physical experience of the experimenter is not capable of leading us up to the regions of the highest abstraction. Tentative deduction takes the place of the predominantly inductive methods appropriate to the youthful state of science. Such a theoretical structure must be quite thoroughly elaborated in order for it to lead to consequences that can be compared with experience. It is certainly the case that here, as well, the empirical fact is the all-powerful judge. But its judgment can be handed down only on the basis of great and difficult intellectual effort that first bridges the wide space between the axioms and the testable consequences. The theorist must accomplish this Herculean task with the clear understanding that this effort may only be destined to prepare the way for a death sentence for his theory. One should not reproach the theorist who undertakes such a task by calling him a fantast; instead, one must allow him his fantasizing, since for him there is no other way to his goal whatsoever. Indeed, it is no planless fantasizing, but rather a search for the logically simplest possibilities and their consequences.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The theoretician is forced, ever more, to allow himself to be directed by purely mathematical, formal points of view in…" by Albert Einstein?
Albert Einstein photo
Albert Einstein 702
German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955

Related quotes

Walter A. Shewhart photo

“The definition of random in terms of a physical operation is notoriously without effect on the mathematical operations of statistical theory because so far as these mathematical operations are concerned random is purely and simply an undefined term. The formal and abstract mathematical theory has an independent and sometimes lonely existence of its own. But when an undefined mathematical term such as random is given a definite operational meaning in physical terms, it takes on empirical and practical significance. Every mathematical theorem involving this mathematically undefined concept can then be given the following predictive form: If you do so and so, then such and such will happen.”

Walter A. Shewhart (1891–1967) American statistician

[Shewhart, Walter A., Deming, William E., Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control, The Graduate School, The Department of Agriculture, 1939, 18]
Economic Control of Quality of Manufactured Product,1931

Fritjof Capra photo

“If physics leads us today to a world view which is essentially mystical, it returns, in a way, to its beginning, 2,500 years ago. […] This time, however, it is not only based on intuition, but also on experiments of great precision and sophistication, and on a rigorous and consistent mathematical formalism.”

Fritjof Capra book The Tao of Physics

Source: The Tao of Physics (1975), Ch. 1, Modern Physics, p. 19.

Theodore Schultz photo

“Human beings are incontestably capital from an abstract and mathematical point of view.”

Theodore Schultz (1902–1998) American economist

Source: "Investment in human capital," 1961, p. 3

Richard Feynman photo

“The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction. But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction — a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory — who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

"The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics," Nobel Lecture http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html (11 December 1965)

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle photo

“The calculus is to mathematics no more than what experiment is to physics, and all the truths produced solely by the calculus can be treated as truths of experiment. The sciences must proceed to first causes, above all mathematics where one cannot assume, as in physics, principles that are unknown to us. For there is in mathematics, so to speak, only what we have placed there… If, however, mathematics always has some essential obscurity that one cannot dissipate, it will lie, uniquely, I think, in the direction of the infinite; it is in that direction that mathematics touches on physics, on the innermost nature of bodies about which we know little.”

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle (1657–1757) French writer, satirist and philosopher of enlightenment

Elements de la géométrie de l'infini (1727) as quoted by Amir R. Alexander, Geometrical Landscapes: The Voyages of Discovery and the Transformation of Mathematical Practice (2002) citing Michael S. Mahoney, "Infinitesimals and Transcendent Relations: The Mathematics of Motion in the Late Seventeenth Century" in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. David C. Lindberg, Robert S. Westman (1990)

Albert Einstein photo

“Fundamental ideas play the most essential role in forming a physical theory. Books on physics are full of complicated mathematical formulae. But thought and ideas, not formulae, are the beginning of every physical theory. The ideas must later take the mathematical form of a quantitative theory, to make possible the comparison with experiment.”

Albert Einstein book The Evolution of Physics

The Evolution of Physics (1938) (co-written with Leopold Infeld)
1930s

Peter Debye photo

“Mathematical physics is in the first place physics and it could not exist without experimental investigations.”

Peter Debye (1884–1966) Dutch-American physicist and physical chemist

Inaugural lecture for his professorship of mathematical physics at the University of Utrecht (1913), as quoted by Davies, Mansel. Peter Joseph Wilhelm Debye: 1884-1966. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of The Royal Society, Vol. 16 (1970).

Max Planck photo

“Experimenters are the shocktroops of science… An experiment is a question which science poses to Nature, and a measurement is the recording of Nature’s answer. But before an experiment can be performed, it must be planned – the question to nature must be formulated before being posed. Before the result of a measurement can be used, it must be interpreted – Nature’s answer must be understood properly. These two tasks are those of theorists, who find himself always more and more dependent on the tools of abstract mathematics.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers (1949)

Freeman Dyson photo

“Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel… proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. … I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics.”

Freeman Dyson book Infinite in All Directions

Source: Infinite in All Directions (1988), Ch. 3 : Manchester and Athens
Context: Fifty years ago Kurt Gödel... proved that the world of pure mathematics is inexhaustible. … I hope that the notion of a final statement of the laws of physics will prove as illusory as the notion of a formal decision process for all mathematics. If it should turn out that the whole of physical reality can be described by a finite set of equations, I would be disappointed, I would feel that the Creator had been uncharacteristically lacking in imagination.

“I was attracted to video art because it allowed me to combine a strong sense of content with formal innovation. The field was wide open and allowed for a great deal of experimentation for creating new forms.”

Beryl Korot (1945) American artist

Source: Meeker, Carlene. " Beryl Korot http://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/korot-beryl." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. (Viewed on July 9, 2015)

Related topics