The Postcard
A postally unused carte postale published by S. Gonard of Neuchatel.
Murten (German) or Morat (French) is a municipality in the See district of the canton of Fribourg in Switzerland.
It is located on the southern shores of Lake Morat (also known as Lake Murten).
Morat is situated between Bern and Lausanne and is the capital of the See/Lac District of the canton of Fribourg.
It is one of the municipalities with a majority (about 75%) of German speakers in the predominantly French-speaking Canton of Fribourg.
Although someone has written the date on the front of the card (presumably the date on which he or she visited Morat) there is nothing written on the back of the card.
Albert Einstein
So what else happened on the 30th. June 1905?
Well, on Friday the 30th. June 1905, the German physics journal Annalen der Physik published a paper by a young patent clerk called Albert Einstein.
The paper, Zur Elektrodynamik Bewegter Körper, (On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies) set out Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity.
The theory explains the relationship between space and time – and between energy and mass – in the famous equation E=mc2 - i.e. Energy equals Mass times the Speed of Light squared.
Thoughts From Albert Einstein
"I know not with what weapons World War III
will be fought, but World War IV will be fought
with sticks and stones."
"Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for
tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop
questioning."
"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep
your balance, you must keep moving."
"Only two things are infinite, the universe
and human stupidity, and I'm not sure
about the former."
"A person who never made a mistake
never tried anything new."
"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination
will take you everywhere."
"Peace cannot be kept by force; it can
only be achieved by understanding."
"It's not that I'm so smart, it's just
that I stay with problems longer."
"We can't solve problems by using
the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them."
"Reality is merely an illusion,
albeit a very persistent one."
"The true sign of intelligence is
not knowledge but imagination."
"Education is what remains after
one has forgotten what one has
learned in school."
"If we knew what it was we were doing,
it would not be called research, would it?"
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to
awaken joy in creative expression and
knowledge."
"Intellectuals solve problems,
geniuses prevent them."
"Nationalism is an infantile disease.
It is the measles of mankind."
"Only a life lived for others
is a life worthwhile."
"A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit
and a violin; what else does a
man need to be happy?"
"I live in that solitude which is painful
in youth, but delicious in the years of
maturity."
"Any man who can drive safely while
kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving
the kiss the attention it deserves."
"No amount of experimentation can
ever prove me right; a single experiment
can prove me wrong."
"There are two ways to live: you can
live as if nothing is a miracle; you can
live as if everything is a miracle."
"A question that sometimes drives me
hazy: am I or are the others crazy?"
"Try not to become a man of success,
but rather try to become a man of value."
"If you are out to describe the truth,
leave elegance to the tailor."
"The whole of science is nothing more
than a refinement of everyday thinking."
"Never do anything against conscience,
even if the state demands it."
"If you can't explain it simply, you
don't understand it well enough."
"Look deep into nature, and then you
will understand everything better."
"I have no special talent. I am
only passionately curious."
"The world is a dangerous place to live;
not because of the people who are evil,
but because of the people who don't do
anything about it."
"Common sense is the collection of
prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"The only reason for time is so that
everything doesn't happen at once."
"Whoever is careless with the truth in
small matters cannot be trusted with
important matters."
"Great spirits have always encountered
violent opposition from mediocre minds."
"If people are good only because they fear
punishment, and hope for reward, then we
are a sorry lot indeed."
"Any man who reads too much and uses
his own brain too little falls into lazy habits
of thinking."
"He who can no longer pause to wonder
and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead;
his eyes are closed."
"Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry
of logical ideas."
"You cannot simultaneously prevent
and prepare for war."
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives
formal education."
"I want to go when I want. It is tasteless
to prolong life artificially. I have done my
share; it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."
"Politics is for the present, but an
equation is for eternity."
"We still do not know one thousandth
of one percent of what nature has
revealed to us."
"He who joyfully marches to music
in rank and file has already earned
my contempt. He has been given a
large brain by mistake, since for him
the spinal cord would suffice."
"It is strange to be known so universally
and yet to be so lonely."
"Heroism on command, senseless violence,
and all the loathsome nonsense that goes
by the name of patriotism - how passionately
I hate them!"
"I do not believe in immortality of the individual,
and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human
concern with no superhuman authority behind it."
"The devil has put a penalty on all things
we enjoy in life. Either we suffer in health
or we suffer in soul or we get fat."
"The process of scientific discovery is,
in effect, a continual flight from wonder."
"We shall require a substantially new
manner of thinking if mankind is to
survive."
"That deep emotional conviction of the
presence of a superior reasoning power,
which is revealed in the incomprehensible
universe, forms my idea of God."
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably
be a musician. I often think in music. I live
my daydreams in music. I see my life in
terms of music."
"The faster you go, the shorter you are."
"It was the experience of mystery - even
if mixed with fear - that engendered religion."
"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and
punishes the objects of his creation and is
but a reflection of human frailty."
"Isn't it strange that I who have written only
unpopular books should be such a popular
fellow?"
"It should be possible to explain
the laws of physics to a barmaid."
"I very rarely think in words at all.
A thought comes, and I may try to
express it in words afterwards."
"Concern for man and his fate must always
form the chief interest of all technical
endeavours. Never forget this in the midst
of your diagrams and equations."
"The release of atomic energy has not
created a new problem. It has merely
made more urgent the necessity of
solving an existing one."
"The unleashed power of the atom has
changed everything save our modes of
thinking and we thus drift toward
unparalleled catastrophe."
"Mozart's music is so pure and beautiful
that I see it as a reflection of the inner
beauty of the universe."
"There comes a time when the mind takes
a higher plane of knowledge but can never
prove how it got there."