"When the number of factors coming into..." - Quote by Albert Einstein
When the number of factors coming into play in a phenomenological complex is too large scientific method in most cases fails. One need only think of the weather, in which case the prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible. Nevertheless, no one doubts that we are confronted with a causal connection whose causal components are in the main known to us. Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction because of the variety of factors in operation, not because of any lack of order in nature.
More by Albert Einstein
“Formal symbolic representation of qualitative entities is doomed to its rightful place of minor significance in a world where flowers and beautiful women abound.”
“Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.”
“The world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation.”
More on Science
“The Anti-Vivisector does not deny that physiologists must make experiments and even take chances with new methods. He says that they must not seek knowledge by criminal methods, just as they must not make money by criminal methods. He does not object to Galileo dropping cannon balls from the top of the leaning tower of Pisa; but he would object to shoving off two dogs or American tourists.”
“The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal.”
“Science becomes dangerous only when it imagines that it has reached its goal.”
More on Prediction
“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
“Stop trying to predict the direction of the stock market, the economy or elections.”
“We know enough to be sure that the scientific achievements of the next fifty years will be far greater, more rapid, and more surprising, than those we have already experienced. ... Wireless telephones and television, following naturally upon the their present path of development, would enable their owner to connect up to any room similarly equipped and hear and take part in the conversation as well as if he put his head in through the window.”