I did a Google search & it appears that Einstein is credited with the phrase "leave elegance to the tailors". However, I seem to recall that Einstein was merely quoting another German mathematician -- perhaps Hilbert. Does anyone here have any further insights?
Einstein's original quote is this: "In the interests of clarity, it seemed necessary to constantly remind myself to pay not the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation; I adhered conscientiously to the rule of the brilliant theoretician, Ludwig Boltzmann, to leave elegance to tailors and shoemakers." So he seems to attribute it to Boltzmann. On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
"leave elegance to the tailors".
Outstanding! Thanks very much. My memory did not fail me after all. Now we have to fix Wikipedia... At 08:46 AM 4/14/2011, quad wrote:
Einstein's original quote is this:
"In the interests of clarity, it seemed necessary to constantly remind myself to pay not the slightest attention to the elegance of the presentation; I adhered conscientiously to the rule of the brilliant theoretician, Ludwig Boltzmann, to leave elegance to tailors and shoemakers."
So he seems to attribute it to Boltzmann.
On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
"leave elegance to the tailors".
Franz von Krbek in his Eingefangenes Unendlich (1952) writes: http://chesswanks.com/txt/Boltzmann.jpg My clumsy attempt at translation: Boltzmann finds himself in the wrong when he claims elegance belong to the shoemaker and the tailor, but not the mathematician, because he overlooks the fact that individual features of a problem allows rearrangement into new contexts.
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