Albert Einstein once compared alphabetizing words with explaining nature through a theory. Alphabetizing works because people agree on an order for the letters. Newton’s theory of gravitation works because its principles successfully describe patterns in the world. Einstein found that difference remarkable. It helps explain what he meant when he associated scientific inquiry with a sense of wonder. Einstein’s Physics and Reality, 1936 · Einstein’s letter to Maurice Solovine, 1952
What Einstein called cosmic religious feeling
In his 1930 essay Religion and Science, Einstein described a kind of religious feeling that involved admiration for the order of nature. He called it “cosmic religious feeling” and presented it as a motive for research. The work of developing a theory can take years and offer little immediate reward. Einstein thought that the conviction that nature could be understood helped sustain that work. In this essay, the term names an attitude that can motivate inquiry. The way a theory is tested is a separate question. Einstein’s Religion and Science, 1930 · Einstein’s Physics and Reality, 1936
What makes a scientific idea answerable to experience
In Physics and Reality, first published in 1936, Einstein began with an everyday example. The mind groups recurring sense impressions and forms the concept of a physical object. The concept is something the mind makes, yet its usefulness depends on the experiences it connects. Einstein carried the same distinction into physics. Scientists can propose concepts and relationships among them. To tell whether a theory describes the world, they must connect those proposals to experience. That was the setting for his remark that “the eternal mystery of the world is its comprehensibility.” Einstein’s Physics and Reality, 1936
Why he used the word miracle in a letter
In March 1952, Einstein responded to his friend Maurice Solovine, who had questioned why he used language such as miracle for the intelligibility of nature. Einstein used Newton’s theory to explain what surprised him. People can choose the principles of a theory, just as they can choose a way to sort a list. The ability of those principles to account for observations depends on how the world behaves. Einstein used the word miracle for the surprising success of this connection. The letter also makes clear that he was aware the language could sound like an endorsement of clerical religion, an interpretation he resisted. Einstein’s letter to Maurice Solovine, 1952
Conclusion
Einstein’s essay and letter separate the feeling that motivates inquiry from the evidence that gives a theory its force. Human beings invent the concepts, and observation helps decide which ones work. Einstein’s wonder concerns the fact that this process yields understanding at all. That distinction explains how he could use religious language about the experience of discovery while insisting on empirical standards for physics. Einstein’s Religion and Science, 1930 · Einstein’s Physics and Reality, 1936 · Einstein’s letter to Maurice Solovine, 1952 · Einstein’s views on God and religion
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