A Quote by Edward Witten

In Einstein's general relativity the structure of space can change but not its topology. Topology is the property of something that doesn't change when you bend it or stretch it as long as you don't break anything.

Edward Witten

Quote Topics

Anything Bend Break Change Einstein General General Relativity Long Property Relativity Something Space Stretch Structure Topology

Quote Author

Edward Witten
American - Mathematician
Born: August 26, 1951

There was a long history of speculation that in quantum gravity, unlike Einstein's classical theory, it might be possible for the topology of spacetime to change.

Edward Witten

In the context of general relativity, space almost is a substance. It can bend and twist and stretch, and probably the best way to think about space is to just kind of imagine a big piece of rubber that you can pull and twist and bend.

Alan Guth

The supposed astronomical proofs of the theory [of relativity], as cited and claimed by Einstein, do not exist. He is a confusionist. The Einstein theory is a fallacy. The theory that ether does not exist, and that gravity is not a force but a property of space can only be described as a crazy vagary, a disgrace to our age.

Charles Lane Poor

Most of what Einstein said and did has no direct impact on what anybody reads in the Bible. Special relativity, his work in quantum mechanics, nobody even knows or cares. Where Einstein really affects the Bible is the fact that general relativity is the organizing principle for the Big Bang.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Einstein's theory of General Relativity has a mathematical structure very similar to Yang-Mills theory.

Chen-Ning Yang

More philosophically-minded critics regarded Einstein's argument for relativity as little more than a logical bait-and-switch ploy: "[T]he supposition of most expounders of the Special Theory, that Einstein has proved the relativity of simultaneity in general - or that his 'simultaneity' is something more than a logical artefact - must manifestly be given up.

Arthur Oncken Lovejoy

Topology and number theory are my faves.

Janna Levin

We have to have a combination of general relativity that describes the warping of space and time, and quantum physics, which describes the uncertainties in that warping and how they change.

Kip Thorne

... commutative algebra is a lot like topology, only backwards.

John C. Baez

Topology is precisely the mathematical discipline that allows the passage from local to global.

Rene Thom

Einstein had two new predictions from general relativity. One was that light would bend. That was tested in 1919, and basically, he was proven right. The second prediction was gravitational waves, which took us 100 years to prove. The theory itself, which is thought by most to be rather obscure, you use every day, probably.

Barry Barish

I worry about Zimbabweans. They bend, they bend, they bend, they bend - where do the people break? How long can they go on scrounging for food in garbage dumps and using the moisture from sewage drains to plant vegetables?

Samantha Power

Topology is the science of fundamental pattern and structural relationships of event constellations.

R. Buckminster Fuller

Point set topology is a disease from which the human race will soon recover.

Henri Poincare

Time travel used to be thought of as just science fiction, but Einstein's general theory of relativity allows for the possibility that we could warp space-time so much that you could go off in a rocket and return before you set out.