Anyone out there smart enough to figure out what he meant by this quote?
" Life is finite. Time is infinite. The probability that I am alive today is zero. In spite of this, I am now alive. Now how is that?"
- Albert Einstein
2007-11-13 15:45:10 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Quotations
Time is HUGE. There is LOTS of time. Albert Einstein's life when measured against the span of time is nothing. If you were to pick any point in time at random, the probability of you picking the exact time that Albert Einstein was alive would be zero because there is SO much time. Yet when he said it, he was alive, therefore he was flying in the face of astronomical odds.
The REAL meaning of what he was saying is:
You can't figure it all out. Engineers will tell you that if you do the math bees can't fly, yet they do.
The great thing about Albert Einstein is if you would have asked him to explain the saying, he would have said "It means hand me that chocolate cake"
2007-11-13 15:52:48 · answer #1 · answered by YahooGuru2u 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
As others have said, he is saying that the statistical probability of his particular short, finite life occuring at a particular point on the infinitely long time-line is zero. But he was undeniably alive, despite such statistical probability. I think, with the question at the end, that he is acknowledging the limitations of science and math as predictors of particular events or of our lives, themselves. We cannot reduce everythign (or maybe anything) to a mathematical certainty.
This sort of thinking may be what helped him bend his extraordinary mind outside of the way we normally think to come up with his E=MC2, which connected different measurable concepts in a relationship that people simply had not conceived of before. He used math and science to prove it, but had to look way outside the obvious to conceive it.
2007-11-14 18:30:38 · answer #2 · answered by timewaster 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We are a alive for less than a spark of time, given the huge span between whenever time began and whenever time will end--if it ever does.
Take the seventy or so years of the life of a particular individual, and note that the probability of that person being alive at a particular time between the beginning and end of time is so small as to be near zero.
2007-11-14 01:27:01 · answer #3 · answered by Pagan Dan 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
the measure of your life against the life of the universe is so small that it may as well be nothing. So the odds of you being alive at this very moment is also so small as to be nothing... Yet here you are, alive, against all odds. My opinion. It means be grateful for the time you have and use the most of it. But what do I know, I am just a tiny flash in the history of our world, let alone the universe.
2007-11-13 23:56:17 · answer #4 · answered by Okino 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
OK here's my attempt lol
A human's life is finite (i.e. it will last a certain number of years)
Time itself is infinite (i.e. it goes on forever and ever and has no beginning or end)
So the probability or chance that a tiny human lifespan (say 100 years) will happen at any one time in the gazillion years of time is so small, so tiny, that it is actually zero because the duration of time is infinite
So I think he is saying that mathematically speaking, there is zero chance of it!
2007-11-13 23:51:22 · answer #5 · answered by maddog27271 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Each individual lives for at most 100 years or so, and then dies.
Time goes on and on for billions of years.
Your own lifetime is a tiny part of those billions of years, and it could come have come at any time in the history of the universe, but it just happened to come now.
Even something that occurs for a very short time in the long history of the universe does happen.
And for you, that is NOW!
2007-11-13 23:57:56 · answer #6 · answered by jotacar 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Life has an end, it can be few minutes from now, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
Time is endless; it will last forever.
You are still breathing , but can't tell until when, because death comes any time.
If today, you are alive, the only thing you can do is to give thanks to the Almighty.
2007-11-14 06:41:02 · answer #7 · answered by jmjm 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Really, it's quite nonsense. There is no relationship between having a life and the proposed infinte time. It's not like he's proposing that his consciousness is distinct from his body and he just happened to land in that particular time, in which case the probability and his question, would be relevant.
2007-11-13 23:59:14 · answer #8 · answered by Zentraed 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
time is infinite so meaning is endless. if you get the probability of your life which is to short it's nothing but a spec compared to time. let x be the duration of your life. x divided by infinity is zero so its probability is zero.
Just a stupid guess.
2007-11-13 23:52:57 · answer #9 · answered by Jors 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe there is spiritual connotations in there in the second part of quote, like why is he here, why is he 'aware' he is here, life is so short relative to time, so why is life seems like eternity or something like that.
2007-11-14 06:28:50 · answer #10 · answered by dsarkdsamned 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋