"The other constraint in our choice of concepts... lies in Einstein's call for frugality and simplicity. ...the aim of any good theoretical system is "the greatest possible sparsity of the logically independent elements (basic concepts and axioms)." Any redundancy or elaboration must be avoided, for "it is the grand object of all theory to make these irreducible elements as simple and as few in number as possible." For example, it was, in his view, "an unsatisfactory feature of classical mechanics that in its fundamental laws the same mass appears in two different roles, namely as an inertial mass in the laws of motion, and as a gravitational mass in the law of gravitation." The equivalence of these two interpretations of mass signaled to him a truth which needed to be stated as a basic axiom (in General Relativity Theory), rather than saddling the theory with a proliferation which did not seem to be inherent in phenomena."
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Original Language: English
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Sources
, The Advancement of Science, and its Burdens (1986) quoting Albert Einstein from, respectively, "Autobiographical notes" in Albert Einstein: Philosopher-scientist, The Library of Living Philosophers (1949) p.13, and from Ideas and Opinions (1954) Tr. Sonja Bargmann, p. 293.
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General relativity
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