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Thursday, 31 May 2007

Day 86

Einstein, A.

I was sitting in a chair in the patent office at Bern when all of a sudden a thought occurred to me: ‘If a person falls freely he will not feel his own weight’. I was startled. This simple thought made a deep impression on me. It impelled me toward a theory of gravitation.

Kyoto Lecture reported by J. Ishiwara in Einstein Koen-Roku, (Tokyo-Tosho, Tokyo, 1977) cited by A. Pais in Subtle is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein (OUP, 1982) p. 179.

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