This statement attributed to the Great Physics can often be found on the Internet. We checked whether Albert Einstein said like that.

The fact that the author of the special theory of relativity pronounced the phrase in question, is claimed by numerous Internet collectors aphorisms, and in Some Of these, the quote begins with the word "pointless." Quote is popular and in social networks. With a binding to Einstein, she also occurs on the newspaper sites "Moscow Komsomolets", Association of Banks of Russia, Rospatent, Yerevan State University And in many other sources. The statement is also known in the West - in particular, it is present on the official pages of various American universities And Colleges. In the English -language version, the first word is usually the insanity - “madness”, “recklessness”.

However, even the most meticulous study of the works of Albert Einstein, published during his lifetime, does not bring any results - apparently, the scientist did not write and did not speak anything. In the University of Princeton (whose honorary doctor he was) collection of quotes Physics is placed in the section “Incorrectly attributed to Einstein”.

Where did the winged phrase come from and why is it attribute to Einstein? The earliest rather close coincidence with a quote is found in the issue of Knoxville News Sentinel (Tennessee, USA) of October 11, 1981-in an article dedicated to the meeting of the members of the organization of Al-Aanon (assistance to the families of anonymous alcoholics). At the meeting, standard "12 Steps"that you need to make an alcoholic in order to recover from addiction. The second of the steps sounds like this: "We came to the conclusion that only the power is more powerful than we can regain us sanity." In response, one of the participants in the meeting noted that not all alcohol women agree with the formulation of "regain sanity." “In fact, one of them adamantly claims that she never reached madness. But the other remarks: “Madness is to do the same again and again and expect different results,” he said.

Perhaps the article on a close topic was read in the American organization “Anonymous Addicts”. At least the next month came out brochure This organization, where there was a phrase "madness is a repetition of the same mistakes in anticipation of different results."

And in 1983, the phrase first appeared in the popular edition - in the bestseller "Sudden death" American writer, feminist and defender of the rights of lesbians Rita May Brown, where she was attributed to one of the heroines. After that, the statement diverged into quotesin which usually It was mentioned The name of the writer. However, gradually the maxim began to gain new authors - for example, in 1988 attributed Peggy Bassett’s church leader of religious science, and by 1990, Albert Einstein finally became the “author” of the winged phrase. In particular, it is his He mentioned In his speech, the district prosecutor of the district Travis (Texas) Ronnie Earl. And already in the first half of the 90s, the attribution of the phrase to Einstein I became widespread.

Why is Albert Einstein? It is difficult to give a definite answer to this question. There is another attribute to Einstein quote With a similar idea: “The serious tasks that we are faced with cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that was used when we created them.” Perhaps people mixed up two phrases or remembered a more cult statement, attributed to Einstein: “There are only two endless things: the universe and human stupidity. Although I'm not sure about the universe. ” One way or another, but Einstein definitely did not pronounce the quote we examined.