Einstein & Faith

Post Reply New Topic

He also said: "If relativity is proved right the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew."

Yes, but I think that my assessment actually fits well with what he has said on the issue over the course of his lifetime. Then again, it's Einstein's business what Einstein believes. And, again, I'm really not concerned with what he has to say about religion: if I wanted a lecture on General Relativity, I'd talk to him, but all I'd assume him worth beyond that is pleasant conversation.

Yes, my quote was more about human nature, tribalism and tendency to select facts based on preference rather than ... fact.

On religion, he supposedly said:

"The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism."

Did he says this before the A-bomb being dropped or after? Seems like something he would say knowing the atom bomb was in the works.

I don't know.

But his prediction was wrong. The Nazis couldn't even wait to see whether he was right. (Berlin newspaper headline: "Good news from Einstein - he's not coming back!") Through their actions, everyone thinks of him as an American rather than a German.

Science is merely the art of explaining all things, I do think that if such a thing exists, it can be explained on scientific terms, but would be beyond **humans** to be able to explain. Science doesn't rely on man.

Why does it matter? I thought that einstein was just yucky old wrinkles and grey yucky old hair smoking up a storm or is that how he wants to be remembered? Either that or that my OCD is really bad.

Goldbach's Conjecture can't be undecidable as if it were false then there would be a counterexample.

There are fairly strong asymptotic patterns e.g. The Prime Number Theorem. etc.

Wow, now that gives me something to chew on, because if one COULD show that it's
undecidable, that would prove the lack of counter-example, and hence "prove" it's
truth. But, decidability is NOT a feature of arithmetic, so doesn't this open a new door
to the issue?

I don't think you could show that it was undecidable because we can already show that it IS decidable.