Evidence · Case 08 · Science
George Gamow’s report of the blunder remark
One exhibit from the free evidence repository at apologetics.pro.
Gamow wrote that Einstein called the cosmological constant the biggest blunder of his life. Later scholarship by Cormac O’Raifeartaigh and colleagues concludes it is very plausible Einstein said something like this, while noting the exact wording is uncertain.
Sources
- C. O’Raifeartaigh et al., “Investigating the Legend of Einstein’s Biggest Blunder,” Physics Today, 2018. (opens in a new tab)
George Gamow, “My World Line: An Informal Autobiography,” 1970. - C. O’Raifeartaigh et al., “Investigating the Legend of Einstein’s Biggest Blunder,” Physics Today, 2018.
Objections & responses
- If the quote may be apocryphal, why include it at all? Using a possibly invented quote, even with caveats, is a bad look on a site about accuracy.
It is included precisely to correct the common apologetics practice of quoting it as certain, and the scholarly investigation into its origin is cited. That is the right way to handle a famous but uncertain quotation: report it, cite the study, and rest the point on what is documented, which is Einstein’s own published abandonment of the constant. Treat the quote as a footnote to the documented history, not as the headline.