Make things as simple as possible, but not any simpler.

Make things as simple as possible, but not any simpler.

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

アインシュタインの元の文章は難しいので広まらず、他の人が「シンプル」にしたものがアインシュタインの発言として広まった

これがsimplerにしちゃってないのかどうかはアインシュタインの方の原文を読んでないのでわからない

理論は現象を説明できる最小限のシンプルなものであるべきだが、それよりさらにシンプル(つまり現象を説明できないもの)になってはいけない、的なこと

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from Quote Investigator

I also remember a remark of Albert Einstein, which certainly applies to music. He said, in effect, that everything should be as simple as it can be but not simpler!

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

From “On the Method of Theoretical Physics,” the Herbert Spencer Lecture, Oxford, June 10, 1933. This is the Oxford University’ Press version. The words “simple,” “simplest,” and “simplicity” recur throughout the lecture. The version reprinted in 1954 in Ideas and Opinions, 272, is a bit different. This sentence may be the origin of the much-quoted sentence that “everything should be as simple as possible, but not simpler,” and its variants.