|
Paul Ehrenfest
(18 Jan 1880 - 25 Sep 1933)
Austrian physicist.
|
Science Quotes by Paul Ehrenfest (3 quotes)
A thesis has to be presentable… but don't attach too much importance to it. If you do succeed in the sciences, you will do later on better things and then it will be of little moment. If you don’t succeed in the sciences, it doesn’t matter at all.
— Paul Ehrenfest
Quoted in Leidraad (1985), 2. (This is a periodical of the University of Leiden, Holland.)
Don't be impatient with me. Bear in mind that I hop around among all of you big beasts like a harmless and helpless frog who is afraid of being squashed.
— Paul Ehrenfest
Letter to Albert Einstein, 16 Aug 1920. In Martin J. Klein, Paul Ehrenfest: The Making of a Theoretical Physicist (1970), Vol. 1, 319.
Einstein, my upset stomach hates your theory [of General Relativity]—it almost hates you yourself! How am I to provide for my students? What am I to answer to the philosophers?!!
— Paul Ehrenfest
Letter to Albert Einstein, 20 Nov 1919. In Martin J. Klein, Paul Ehrenfest: The Making of a Theoretical Physicist (1970), Vol. 1, 315.
See also:
- 18 Jan - short biography, births, deaths and events on date of Ehrenfest's birth.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
