[Einstein's cosmological constant] is a name without any meaning. ...We have, in fact, not the slightest inkling of what it's real significance is. It is put in the equations in order to give the greatest possible degree of mathematical generality. (Willem de Sitter)

[Einstein's cosmological constant] is a name without any meaning. ...We have, in fact, not the slightest inkling of what it's real significance is. It is put in the equations in order to give the greatest possible degree of mathematical generality.

Willem de Sitter

Related topics

constant degree generality inkling meaning name order possible real significance

Related quotes

It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available-more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more.

Nhat Hanh

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive.

Thomas Sowell

There are two kinds of truths: those of reasoning and those of fact. The truths of reasoning are necessary and their opposite is impossible; the truths of fact are contingent and their opposites are possible.

Gottfried Leibniz

My suggestion is that at each state the proper order of operation of the mind requires an overall grasp of what is generally known, not only in formal logical, mathematical terms, but also intuitively, in images, feelings, poetic usage of language, etc.

David Bohm

In fact, violence as a symbol of our growing irrationality has had an increasing role in activity for its own sake, when no possible justification could be made that the activity was seeking to resolve a problem.

Carroll Quigley