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Einstein and Epicurus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Boris Kousnetsov
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Extract

Atoms and space. Clinamen. Individual existence. Isotachy. The contemporary epilogue to Epicurus's physics. The problem of death and fear of death in Epicurus and Einstein. The gods of Epicurus and Einstein's God.

In 1923 a new edition of Lucretius's De rerum natura was published in Germany. The second volume—a translation of the poem into German—was prefaced by Einstein. In it one reads that “Lucretius's book will enchant anyone who is not yet completely dominated by the spirit of our time, and who feels able to take a step back to take stock of the present age, and judge our contemporaries' spiritual attainments.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 21 , Issue 81 , March 1973 , pp. 44 - 69
Copyright
Copyright © 1973 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

1 Titus Lucretius Carus, De rerum natura, Ed. H. Diels, vol. II, Berlin, 1923.

2 A. Einstein, Sobraniye nauchnykh trudov, IV, Moscow, 1967, p. 61.

3 A. Einstein, op. cit., pp. 260-261.

4 Lucretius I, 330-345.

5 Lucretius I, 1008-1011.

6 Lucretius, II, 289-293.

7 Lucretius, II, 216-229.

8 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. I, Moscow/Leningrad 1929, p. 43.

9 K. Marx and F. Engels, op. cit. vol. I, p. 44.

10 Lucretius, II, 279-280.

11 K. Marx and F. Engels, op. cit. p. 45.

12 Epicurus, Letter to Herodotus, 61-62.

13 Einstein, Collected Works (Russian edition), IV, p. 280.

14 Epicurus: letter to Menecaeus, 124-125. In Lucretius, De rerum natura, vol. II, Extracts from Epicurus pp. 591-3.

15 Diogenes Laertius, X, 22. Lucretius, De rerum natura, II. Extracts from Epicurus p. 635.

16 Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk ("Progress of the Physical Sciences," 59, first edition, 1956, p. 158.

17 Helle Zeit - Dunkle Zeit. Hrsg. C. Seelig, Zurich, Europa Verlag, 1956.

18 Ethica, IV, prop. LXXXI.

19 K. Marx and F. Engels, op. cit., vol. I, p. 46.

20 A. Einstein, Lettres à M. Solovine, Paris, 1956, p. 87.

21 Cf. Lucretius, De rerum natura, III, 1039-1041.

22 A. Einstein, Comment je vois le monde, Paris, 1934, p. 13.

23 Cf. Uspekhi fizicheskikh nauk ("Progress in the Physical Sciences,") 59, vol. I, 1956, p. 130.