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Albert Einstein About Pythagoras Theorem Proof

'At the age of 12 I experienced a second wonder of a totally different nature: in a little book dealing with Euclidean plane geometry, which came into my hands at the beginning of a school year. Here were assertions, as for example the intersection of the three altitudes of a triangle in one point, which - though by no means evident - could nevertheless be proved with such certainty that any doubt appeared to be out of the question. This lucidity and certainty made an indescribable impression upon me. For example I remember that an uncle told me the Pythagorean theorem before the holy geometry booklet had come into my hands. After much effort I succeeded in ``proving'' this theorem on the basis of the similarity of triangles ... for anyone who experiences [these feelings] for the first time, it is marvellous enough that man is capable at all to reach such a degree of certainty and purity in pure thinking as the Greeks showed us for the first time to be possible in geometry.'
Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, by Paul Arthur Schilpp, 1951.

Albert Einstein Geometry Quotes
 

Einstein, Albert. 1879-1955. German-born American physicist and Nobel laureate.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.

To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science."


"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
On Science.



"Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics, I assure you that mine are greater."



"The search for truth is more precious than its possession."
The American Mathematical Monthly v. 100 no. 3.



"We come now to the question: what is a priori certain or necessary, respectively in geometry (doctrine of space) or its foundations? Formerly we thought everything; nowadays we think nothing. Already the distance-concept is logically arbitrary; there need be no things that correspond to it, even approximately."
"Space-Time." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 14th ed.


 

 

 

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