Abstract
Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis arnica Veritas. Plato is a friend, Aristotle is a friend, but a greater friend is Truth. This “slogan” was found by R.S.Westfall in the earliest student notebook of Newton. (1981, chap.1) tracked down its history and found it quite common in the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. With some variation it even goes back to antiquity.
This paper is dedicated to John Stachel on his 70th birthday. As an Editor of the Einstein Papers he helped us to understand Einstein’s legacy. In addition he also showed us an Einstein perplexed and unable to make up his mind. He thus enables us to see further by standing on his shoulders.
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Tisza, L. (2003). Can We Learn from History? Do We Want To?. In: Renn, J., et al. Revisiting the Foundations of Relativistic Physics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0111-3_28
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