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Einstein’s most famous quote is totally misunderstood - C C - Apr 12, 2023
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/einstein-famous-quote-misunderstood/
KEY POINTS: Although many Einstein quotes that appear on the internet are complete fabrications or misattributions, "Imagination is more important than knowledge" is totally real. It's often interpreted to mean that having knowledge isn't particularly important, but that being able to imagine and embrace novel possibilities is the true mark of genius. That's not only a misunderstanding about what Einstein actually meant, it contradicts what he explicitly said if you read the rest of the quote, in context. Here's what it truly means.
EXCERPT: . . . Although Einstein would go on to write many more influential papers, the discovery of General Relativity would always loom as his most colossal scientific achievement. In 1929, while being interviewed for the Saturday Evening Post by George Sylvester Viereck, the following exchange occurred:
Einstein: “I believe in intuitions and inspirations. I sometimes feel that I am right. I do not know that I am. When two expeditions of scientists, financed by the Royal Academy, went forth to test my theory of relativity, I was convinced that their conclusions would tally with my hypothesis. I was not surprised when the eclipse of May 29, 1919, confirmed my intuitions. I would have been surprised if I had been wrong.”
Viereck: “Then you trust more to your imagination than to your knowledge?”
Einstein: “I am enough of the artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”
In other words, the first time this quote appeared, it was in the context of Einstein believing that he knew how an experimental/observational result would turn out before it was conducted, on the basis of the previously-established success of his theory. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion, but he chalked up his physical intuition about a yet-to-be-determined measurement to “imagination,” rather than “knowledge,” in response to a leading question from a reporter.
eclipse diagram einstein relativity
But the more famous version of that quote arises in a later writing: in Einstein’s 1931 book, Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms. While speaking about the same topic — the 1919 eclipse and how it put General Relativity to such an important test — Einstein wrote the following:
“[color=#660000]At times I feel certain I am right while not knowing the reason. When the eclipse of 1919 confirmed my intuition, I was not in the least surprised. In fact, I would have been astonished had it turned out otherwise. Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution. It is, strictly speaking, a real factor in scientific research.[c/olor]”
When Einstein talks about imagination — at least, in this particular context — he’s talking about the ability to “imagine” what will happen in various physical circumstances that have yet to be tested. The thing he was imagining was the answer to a specific question in theoretical physics: “How will the light from these distant objects behave and appear when it passes by the totally eclipsed Sun?” According to Einstein’s theory, you’d get one answer, while according to Newton’s, you’d either get half of the Einsteinian prediction or simply none at all. The result, as we swiftly discovered after the critical measurements were taken, agreed with Einstein’s predictions.
In other words, the word “imagination” is doing some heavy lifting in Einstein’s quote, standing in to mean “the predictions of a new theory that I am convinced will be proven to be correct, but that has not been generally accepted by others just yet.” Imagination, in Einstein’s mind, is shorthand for what’s since become known as a gedankenexperiment, or thought-experiment: simulating the consequences of a theory in a regime that’s yet to be tested. Imagination of that sort has led to a whole host of tests of relativity, including... (MORE - missing details)
RE: Einstein’s most famous quote is totally misunderstood - Magical Realist - Apr 14, 2023
I don't see this quote by Einstein as being something other than "imagination" in the common sense of the term. He's initially talking about how scientists confirmed his theory, and then he makes a generalization about imagination and knowledge. I think Einstein meant what he said. Imagination IS vital to the scientific quest. Imagination as the creative and intuitive mental faculty that is other than learned knowledge.
RE: Einstein’s most famous quote is totally misunderstood - Kornee - Apr 15, 2023
As is said now and then, there is wild speculation, and there is informed speculation. Likewise, there is imagination of the navel gazing often psychedelic drug enhanced kind, and there is informed imagination. The latter informed by a preexisting knowledge base that required a lot of perspiration to acquire.
It's too bad that in Einstein's case, he abandoned his earlier gedanken experiment informed deep intuition, for a formal mathematical approach that while 'elegant', had become detached from the capacity to recognize foundational conceptual flaws. Something I have brought up elsewhere on various occasions.
The GR industry however keeps his image propped up as a veritable god.