Talk:John Archibald Wheeler

To my opinion this most prominent quote of John Archibald Wheeler isn't cited correctly, since it originates from the book Misner, Thorne, Wheeler: Gravitation (1973).

It can be found on the right-hand side of page 5 (lying next to me). In the original it reads:

Space tells matter how to move

Matter tells space how to curve

The two sentences are separated by a blank line and no comma or other delimiter is found in them. I think you should cite the original and not a secondary source. Best regards P. Schneider


 * I added the MTW quote, but we only have a hint that the words are attributable to Wheeler rather than to Misner or Thorne. The 2000 wording, which you seem to be referring to, is present word-for-word in the 2000 "Geons...", but as a quote that Wheeler attributes to himself in "A Journey into Gravity and Spacetime". I haven't checked the latter, but https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/30075.John_Archibald_Wheeler quotes a different variant in that book - "Spacetime grips mass, telling it how to move... Mass grips spacetime, telling it how to curve", suggesting that Wheeler's self-quote was really a paraphrase of himself. Boud (talk) 20:32, 9 March 2019 (UTC)