Relativity Quotes

Have you ever heard of the theory of relativity?"Artemis blinked. "Is this a joke? I have traveled through time, Doctor. I think I know a little something about relativity.

A mathematician is an individual who proves his beliefs with equations.

A mathematician tells you that the wall of warped space prevents the Moon from flying out of its orbit yet can't tell you why an astronaut can go back and forth across that same space.

Is numerical equality (forced by the use of specific physical units) the same as conceptual equality? Of course NOT!

Felix Alba-Juez

A university student attending lectures on general relativity i the morning and others on quantum mechanics in the afternoon might be forgiven for thinking that his professors are fools, or have neglected to communicate with each other for at least a century.

Here the attention of the research workers is primarily directed to the problem of reconciling the claims of the special relativity theory with those of the quantum theory. The extraordinary advances made in this field by Dirac ... leave open the question whether it will be possible to satisfy the claims of the two theories without at the same time determining the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant.

Werner Heisenberg

... it should be remembered that the atomicity of electric charge has already found its expression in the specific numerical value of the fine structure constant, a theoretical understanding of which is still missing today.

A relativist is an individual who doesn't know the difference between an adjective and an adverb.

Even when the truth is in fact simple, simplicity is still relative.

Success is a relative thing―and the victory of a boy at marbles is equal to the victory of an Octavius at Actium when measured by the scale of cosmic infinity.

To lose weight, spend time at the gym. To appear like you’ve lost weight, spend time with people who are bigger than you.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

With the magnificence of eternity before us, let time, with all its fluctuations, dwindle into its own littleness.

Thomas Chalmers

Einstein gave us a problem he knew we would never solve.

Eric John Mancini

Time is only linear for engineers and referees.

Never look directly at the sun. Instead, look at the sunflower.

I am positive that in the vast majority of cases we are hammering nails with microscopes.

Arkady Strugatsky

If you like it, you'll find a way to justify it.But if you don't , you'll find ways to falsify it.

Toba Beta

Einstein, twenty-six years old, only three years away from crude privation, still a patent examiner, published in the Annalen der Physik in 1905 five papers on entirely different subjects. Three of them were among the greatest in the history of physics. One, very simple, gave the quantum explanation of the photoelectric effect—it was this work for which, sixteen years later, he was awarded the Nobel prize. Another dealt with the phenomenon of Brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of tiny particles suspended in a liquid: Einstein showed that these movements satisfied a clear statistical law. This was like a conjuring trick, easy when explained: before it, decent scientists could still doubt the concrete existence of atoms and molecules: this paper was as near to a direct proof of their concreteness as a theoretician could give. The third paper was the special theory of relativity, which quietly amalgamated space, time, and matter into one fundamental unity. This last paper contains no references and quotes to authority. All of them are written in a style unlike any other theoretical physicist's. They contain very little mathematics. There is a good deal of verbal commentary. The conclusions, the bizarre conclusions, emerge as though with the greatest of ease: the reasoning is unbreakable. It looks as though he had reached the conclusions by pure thought, unaided, without listening to the opinions of others. To a surprisingly large extent, that is precisely what he had done.

C.P. Snow

What to wear: An employee chooses. How to dress: His employer chose.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Golden lads and girls all must, like chimmney-sweepers, come to dust.

William Shakespeare

To become richer, earn more. To appear richer, move into a poorer neighborhood.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Isn’t it strange how a lamb can feel like a lion when comparing itself to a mouse, whereas a lion feels like a lamb when measuring itself against dragons?

Richelle E. Goodrich

Let's fly away and live forever

Orson Scott Card

Matter tells space how to curve, space tells matter how to move.

Albert Einstein

If all meaning were relative, then the meanings of the terms in the proposition "All meaning is relative" would be relative. Therefore the proposition "All meaning is relative" destroys itself. It is nothing but an evasion of reality. That seems a high price to pay, even for the privilege of killing people.

J. Budziszewski

The total number of people who understand relativistic time, even after eighty years since the advent of special relativity, is still much smaller than the number of people who believe in horoscopes.

The young specialist in English Lit, having quoted me, went on to lecture me severely on the fact that in every century people have thought they understood the Universe at last, and in every century they were proved to be wrong. It follows that the one thing we can say about our modern 'knowledge' is that it is wrong.The young man then quoted with approval what Socrates had said on learning that the Delphic oracle had proclaimed him the wisest man in Greece. 'If I am the wisest man,' said Socrates, 'it is because I alone know that I know nothing.' The implication was that I was very foolish because I was under the impression I knew a great deal.Alas, none of this was new to me. (There is very little that is new to me; I wish my correspondents would realize this.) This particular theme was addressed to me a quarter of a century ago by John Campbell, who specialized in irritating me. He also told me that all theories are proven wrong in time.My answer to him was, 'John, when people thought the Earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the Earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the Earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the Earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

Asked in 1919 whether it was true that only three people in the world understood the theory of general relativity, [Eddington] allegedly replied: 'Who's the third?

Arthur Stanley Eddington

Religion isn't bad, it's our consciousness relativity to religion. There's a reason Mahatma Ghandi said "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." The principle is that religion doesn't make 'you'. 'You' make your 'religion'.

Matthew Donnelly

A man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the 'size' of human suffering is absolutely relative.

Viktor E. Frankl

We are not as important to most people as we are to ourselves. As a matter of fact, we are—to most people—not important at all.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

A VIP area is nothing without not-so-important people.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

Truth is a relationship. As such, each one of us receives the truth and expresses it from within, that is to say, according to one's own circumstances, culture, and situation in life.

To gain height, lose all your tall friends.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana

What you call life is but a dream, and reality is relative.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

In a relativistic universe you don't cling to anything, you learn to swim. And you know what swimming is - it's kind of a relaxed attitude with the water. In which you don't keep yourself afloat by holding the water, but by a certain giving to it.

Our perception of space-time can be thought of in terms of event coordinates relative to our current state of consciousness.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

Reality. It is sometimes brought through foreign eyes; because if you do not know any better, you cannot see the worse (and vice versa).

That had always been the beauty of the wind. It could only be seen through its actions, its effect on others. A gentle reminder that reality does not only exist in the seeable, the palpable, the understandable, but also in the figments and daydreams, the steadfast beliefs and unexplainable uncertainties. Reality is seen and yet unseen. Wholly and absolutely relative. The wind had taught him that.

Kelseyleigh Reber

Where there is no consciousness, there is no time.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

In the search for truth,what you believe matters lessthan how you believe.

Eric Micha'el Leventhal

A non-religious prison when awaken would make others sleep. Therefore his sleeping is good. A religious person when awaken will awaken others. Therefore his awakening is good.

A non-religious person when awaken would make others sleep. Therefore his sleeping is good. A religious person when awaken will awaken others. Therefore his awakening is good.

If beauty is relative, then any and everything when compared to the beauty of God is absolutely hideous.

Mankind has uncovered two extremely efficient theories: one that describes our universe's structure (Einstein's gravity: the theory of general relativity), and one that describes everything our universe contains (quantum field theory), and these two theories won't talk to each other.

Christophe Galfard

I was far from being a child prodigy, and yet I learnt relativity at the age of 15!

All space is relative. There is no such thing as size. The telescope and the microscope have produced a deadly leveling of great and small, far and near. The only little thing is sin, the only great thing is fear!("The Jelly-Fish")

David H. Keller

Mankind has uncovered two extremely efficient theories: one that describes our universe's structure (Einstein's gravity: the theory of general relativity), and one that describes everything our universe contains (quantum field theory), and these two theories won't talk to each other.

Christophe Galfard

I was far from being a child prodigy, and yet I learnt relativity at the age of 15!

All space is relative. There is no such thing as size. The telescope and the microscope have produced a deadly leveling of great and small, far and near. The only little thing is sin, the only great thing is fear!("The Jelly-Fish")

David H. Keller

If a photon is emitted by an electron inside of a clock on Earth and it travels to a clock four light years away, time stops for the clock on Earth and time jumps forward eight years for the distant clock, also the electron that will capture the photon becomes infinitely large, relative to the photon but the electron that emitted it does not become infinitely small therefore, time is not perfectly symmetrical.

Changes is the mother of time. Absence of changes makes no time.

Toba Beta

I had a sneaking suspicion that time was not constant, but I guess I could never prove it. I suppose it didn’t really matter. I even had a theory that time didn’t go in straight line at all. I knew I was no Albert Einstein, but I had the sneaking suspicion that everything had happened, was happening, or would happen was really happening all the time. There was no past, present, and future. Everything was going on all at once and forever. If that was true, then each moment was eternity.

You knows dat in New Orleans is not morning 'til dee sun come up.

The moment seemed endless, but it was probably only half that.

Time felt slower when we do nothing but wait.

Toba Beta

Time is an illusion.

Albert Einstein

There is no Jesus without Judas, no Martin Luther King, Jr., without the Klan; no Ali without Joe Frazier; no freedom without tyranny. No wisdom exists that does not include perspective. Relativity is the greatest gift.

Smartass Disciple: If you are really a master, then make me see miracles!Master of Stupidity: Go to sleep and dream, then wake up thirty years later!

Toba Beta

When two things occur successively we call them cause and effect if we believe one event made the other one happen. If we think one event is the response to the other, we call it a reaction. If we feel that the two incidents are not related, we call it a mere coincidence. If we think someone deserved what happened, we call it retribution or reward, depending on whether the event was negative or positive for the recipient. If we cannot find a reason for the two events' occurring simultaneously or in close proximity, we call it an accident. Therefore, how we explain coincidences depends on how we see the world. Is everything connected, so that events create resonances like ripples across a net? Or do things merely co-occur and we give meaning to these co-occurrences based on our belief system? Lieh-tzu's answer: It's all in how you think.

Liezi