Einstein says it all: geography is much harder than physics
I have to admit to really liking this quotation from Einstein:
“As a young man, my fondest dream was to become a geographer. However, while working in the Customs Office, I thought deeply about the matter and concluded that it was far too difficult a subject. With some reluctance, I then turned to physics as an alternative.”
It’s great and I oft quote it to people as to the complexity of natural systems and, consequently, the importance of geography as a subject (and, lets face it, we all like to be better than physicists. DIGRESSION: I should really carry on with the Einstein train of thought, but the physicist bashing is too tempting. I therefore digress to a quote that Otmar Buser ((I don’t think its attributable to him though) at the Swiss Federal Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research. He said that physicists are actually quite stupid; request an explanation about some physical effect (e.g. how do snowflakes form?) and then proceed to ask “why” to every answer they give. They won’t be able to get to six responses!!
Anyway, returning from digression. This would be all very well and good except for the small matter than Einstein didn’t actually say it. Ho hum, well it was good while it lasted. Now I am probably not the only one alive who thinks this quote is still attributable to Einstein and I’m certainly not the first one to realise that this is misquoted; in fact, it’s a(n) (innocent) hoax. Well after some digging it would appear that quite a few people in the mid-90s didn’t think this was a quotation from Einstein and it took until 1997 and, yes, GIS, to root out the truth (well, at least I think so!).
And the place to look is that oft read journal GIS World. Jerome Dobson also thought the quote odd and so mused about it in one of his columns. The result was a large mailbox in response and an admission from Duane Marble that he had composed the quote as a dig at the physicists in his building. And, as with Chinese Whispers, it had propagated from there. If you Google it all the top hits will show that this has been debunked, but there are still a good spattering of sites that do actually quote it (University of New England for instance).
Whilst GIS World has finished as a title, the back issues will be available online in the not-too-distant future. I’ll link to them then.