“As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.”

Insofern sich die Sätze der Mathematik auf die Wirklichkeit beziehen, sind sie nicht sicher, und insofern sie sicher sind, beziehen sie sich nicht auf die Wirklichkeit. http://books.google.com/books?id=QF0ON71WuxEC&q=%22Insofern+sich+die+S%C3%A4tze+der+Mathematik+auf+die%22&pg=PA3#v=onepage

Geometrie and Erfahrung (1921) pp. 3-4 link.springer.com http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-49903-6_1#page-1 as cited by Karl Popper, The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014) Tr. Andreas Pickel, Ed. Troels Eggers Hansen.
Ref: en.wikiquote.org - Albert Einstein / Quotes / 1920s

http://books.google.com/books?id=QF0ON71WuxEC&q=%22beziehen+sind+sie+nicht+sicher+und+insofern+sie+sicher+sind+beziehen+sie+sich+nicht+auf+die+Wirklichkeit%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage
1920s, Sidelights on Relativity (1922)

Original

Insofern sich die Sätze der Mathematik auf die Wirklichkeit beziehen, sind sie nicht sicher, und insofern sie sicher sind, beziehen sie sich nicht auf die Wirklichkeit.

Geometrie und Erfahrung. Erweiterte Fassung des Festvortrages gehalten an der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin am 27. Januar 1921. Julius Springer Berlin 1921, S. 3 f. archive.org http://archive.org/stream/geometrieunderf00einsgoog/geometrieunderf00einsgoog_djvu.txt. Zitiert in: "Mein Weltbild", hgg. v. Carl Seelig, 1991, S. 196ff.
Naturwissenschaft

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 5, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not r…" by Albert Einstein?
Albert Einstein photo
Albert Einstein 702
German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi… 1879–1955

Related quotes

Niels Bohr photo

“The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

Remarks after the Solvay Conference (1927)
Context: I feel very much like Dirac: the idea of a personal God is foreign to me. But we ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science. The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science. True, we are inclined to think that science deals with information about objective facts, and poetry with subjective feelings. Hence we conclude that if religion does indeed deal with objective truths, it ought to adopt the same criteria of truth as science. But I myself find the division of the world into an objective and a subjective side much too arbitrary. The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality. And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far.

Edward Gordon Craig photo
Douglas Hofstadter photo

“Reality includes creating every real connection and reference.”

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid (1979)

William Thurston photo
John F. Kennedy photo

“I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, Address to ANPA
Context: I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger. The events of recent weeks may have helped to illuminate that challenge for some; but the dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years. Whatever our hopes may be for the future — for reducing this threat or living with it — there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of its challenge to our survival and to our security — a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways in every sphere of human activity.
This deadly challenge imposes upon our society two requirements of direct concern both to the press and to the President — two requirements that may seem almost contradictory in tone, but which must be reconciled and fulfilled if we are to meet this national peril. I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

Jean Paul Sartre photo

“…the reality of society involves the socialization of certain unrealities.”

455
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)

Charles Sanders Peirce photo

“Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.”

Charles de Lint (1951) author

“Where Desert Spirits Crowd the Night”, p. 265
The Ivory and the Horn (1996)
Context: “You’re confusing me.”
“But not deliberately so,” Coyote says. “Let it go on record that any confusion arose simply because we lacked certain commonalities of reference.”

Virginia Woolf photo

“It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Variant: It is far harder to kill a phantom than a reality
Source: The Death of the Moth and Other Essays

Related topics