einstein (WAS: re: Peirce and Anaximander)

[kevin at limits.org]

On Fri, 3 Aug 2001, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> From: Thomas Eckhardt <thomas.eckhardt at uni-bonn.de>
> Subject: Re: Peirce and Anaximander
> 
> Otto wrote:
> > Or is it that [Einstein] just could not accept what he had found out
> > because it
> > proved to be contrary to his religious beliefs?
> 
> He did not seem to have any problems with his own theories. But the theory of
> relativity may be seen as only an extension of Newtonian physics, whereas
> quantum mechanics  undermine the whole idea of a clockwork universe. Someone
> please correct me if I'm wrong. How all this is related to religious belief I
> cannot say.

IIRC, Einstein actually did have a similar problem with one his own
theories.  He added a "corrective constant" matrix to the equation for the
Theory of General Relativity (GR -- uh-oh!), to bring his results into
alignment with his religious beliefs (I think it had something to do with
the expansion of the universe, but it's been a long time).