Einstein didn’t say any of this

Famous figures like Albert Einstein often become what an expert calls “quotation imm”: due to their historical importance, They attract incorrect attributions of famous phrases – which they have never uttered.

As we all know, the renowned German physicist Albert Einstein said one day that “madness is to repeatedly do the same thing in the same way and wait for different results“.

It makes sense. But, unfortunately, there is no palpable evidence that Einstein Someday said such.

False viral quotes are often the result of unintentional errors, usually variations in thoughts or phrases confused with direct citations or originated in a confusion between similar names.

According to the older evidence of the quote on the madness attributed to Einstein is from a 1981 newspaper article that reported a meeting of anonymous alcoholics – more than a quarter of a century after the death of the acclaimed physical.

In addition to a prominent genius of physics, Einstein was arguably a insightful thinkerauthor of many Smart and deep observations about the nature of the universe and humanity.

Judging by posts In social networks and the “motivational poster” industry, we could think that it would have dedicated life to proverbs. In fact, Einstein is a “quotation“, Term coined by Gregory F. Sullivancomputer scientist at Johns Hopkins who in 2010 founded the.

Among the dozens of inspiring phrases attributed to Einstein, it is easy to recognize below Some examples:

• The imagination is everything. It is the preview of the attractions that life reserves us.
• From time to time, a man’s mind is expanded by a new idea or sensation and never returns to its previous dimensions
• They said it could not be done, but the fool did not know that, so the fool went ahead and did it
• Humanity invented the atomic bomb. No mouse in the world would think of building a mousetor
• Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have the love of God present in his heart
• You don’t really understand anything unless you can explain it to your grandmother
• All are geniuses. But if you judge a fish for your ability to climb a tree, you will live all your life believing it is stupid
• The average human being uses only 10 % of his brain
• Not everything that can be told account, and not everything that counts can be counted
• Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudice established in the mind before eighteen
• I fear the day when technology will overcome our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots
• Time is the way nature has to prevent everything from happening at the same time
• If the facts do not fit the theory, the facts change
• Nuclear energy is an infernal form of boiling water
• Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is the experience
• The distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion

Beautiful thoughts, no doubt. But just the lastfound in a letter Einstein wrote in 1955, has some evidence that supports his attribution to the German physicist.

One of Einstein’s most famous phrases almost It can be attributed to you. This is the case of “I refuse to believe that God plays the data with the universe“It was not exactly how I said it, but, according to, it is close.

Einstein will also have said that “there is two infinite things: The universe and human stupidity. But, in relation to the universe, I am not yet absolutely certain“. This is one of its most interesting and most cited thoughts… but also There is no absolute certainty that it has uttered it.

Probably Einstein no I knew which weapons would be locked with World War I, but knew that the fourth would be with stones and sticks. Unfortunately, there is no certainty that someday said it, and it should be considered an apocryphal sentence.

One thing seems to be sure: the renowned German scientist said one day that If it wasn’t physical, I would be a musician. Indeed, Einstein played violin for almost all his life – and liked his instrument so much, which gave him a name: Lina.

It is difficult to truly understand why Einstein will have given a name to his violin; It is certainly very complicated to be able to explain it to our grandmother.