Re: Einstein's attraction to science?

From: Uncle Al (UncleAl0_at_hate.spam.net)
Date: 02/11/05 

Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 08:32:38 -0800

Dirk Van de moortel wrote:
>
> "John Zinni" <j_zinni.NOCRAP@sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:083Pd.5411$504.827267@news20.bellglobal.com...
> > "brett" <account@cygen.com> wrote in message
> > news:1108130843.273465.241100@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
> > > Einstein described his attraction to science as a "flight" from
> > > something to something. I heard this quote on the radio a while back
> > > and didn't understand what the host was saying. I can't find a similar
> > > quote by Einstein on the web. Any ideas?
> >
> > "The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual
> > flight from wonder."
> > Albert Einstein
> > http://www.tc.umn.edu/~burc0050/quotes_einstein.html
>
> Hm, I haven't seen the original quote in German, but from
> what I learned at school, I think the translation should
> perhaps rather be "... a flight *of* wonder".
>
> I guess the original word was "flug".
> Then someone translated the word to "flight" in the
> meaning of "an act or instance of passing through the
> air by the use of wings", but then someone else
> interpreted the word flight as "an act or instance of
> running away".
>
> I cannot imagine that Einstein thought that scientific
> discovery was an act of running away from wonder,
> quite on the contrary...
>

Perhaps, but it works the other way, too. One crude observation can
destroy a century of elegant theory. It happens almost every time
economics makes a prediction instead of an analysis; ditto psychology,
meterology, seismology, political science... and religion.
Heteroskedasticity and test of faith!

Newton fell hard to Einstein when Ernest O. Lawrence couldn't get
improved cyclotrons to work (vs. synchrotrons), then GPS. A lot of
skid marks appeared in shorts in 1957 when parity conservation fell to
a very cold film of Co-60. 

-- 
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
 (Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf

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