Day 21

Einstein, A.

The quantum mechanics is very imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is still not the true Jacob. The theory yields much, but it hardly brings us nearer to the secret of the Old One. In any case I am convinced that he does not throw dice. I am toiling at deriving the equations of motion of material particles regarded as singularities from the differential equations of general relativity.

Letter to M. Born, 4 December, 1926, cited by M. Jammer in The Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (John Wiley, New York, 1974) p.155.

You believe in a God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which I, in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture. I firmly believe, but I hope that someone will discover a more realistic way, or rather a more tangible basis than it has been my lot to do. Even the great initial success of the quantum theory does not make me believe in the fundamental dice game, although I am well aware that our younger colleagues interpret this as a consequence of senility.

Letter to Max Born, September 7, 1944 in the Born Letters p. 149. Quoted by R. W. Clark Einstein: The Life and Times (World Publishing Company, New York, 1971) p. 346.