3 2 8 D O C U M E N T 2 2 4 D E C E M B E R 1 9 2 0
The evening we spent together recently was very stimulating for me. I am
pleased to have made the acquaintance of such a farsighted and strong personality
as you.
With amicable greetings also from my wife, I am yours,
224. From Max Born
[Frankfurt,] 8 December 1920
Dear Einstein,
I’m sending you in the enclosed the circular of the Math. Annalen. I never re-
ceived a submission for this journal before, nor do I know anything about it and
therefore added no
comment.[1]
In addition I’m attaching a copy of a letter from Russia, from my student and
friend Boguslavsky. The letter arrived some time ago
already.[2]
The content might
interest you. From it one sees that something has to be done to try and invite the
poor man (he has a lung problem besides) to Germany so that he doesn’t starve. I
tried all sorts of things, first with Planck, then with Klein and Hilbert at
Göttingen,[3]
whom I asked to prompt the academies to send B. an invitation of
some kind. But they all declined; they don’t want to have anything to do with “for-
eign policy,” as Hilbert put it. Maybe you will think of a way. What Boguslavsky
writes about his research is, in part, evidently nonsense; but this probably is ex-
plained by his deplorable condition; he is a smart, fine person. A mutual friend, Dr.
Bolza in
Würzburg,[4]
incidentally also made an attempt to send Boguslavsky
something through the Red Cross; whether with success I do not know. To stay on
the same topic: some time ago I sent you a letter by Epstein, who was requesting
help. An answer has meanwhile come in from G. N. Lewis in America, whom I had
written about this matter. He has created a position at the university at Berkeley in
California for Epstein and offered it to
him.[5]
But I haven’t heard anything from
Epstein, whether he wants to accept; the Swiss might be keeping
him.[6]
An attempt
to bring him here as my successor fell flat against the faculty’s resistance. Nor
could I get Stern into 1st place, because Wachsmuth wanted Madelung; but Stern
is placed 2nd, Kossel placed
3rd.[7]
In science I tried many things without getting enthusiastic about anything. What
attracts me most is a decent theory of irreversible processes in crystals, as Debye
once
suggested;[8]
but I haven’t arrived at reasonable general propositions. The
measurements at the institute on mean free path are going quite nicely; the main
thing was to keep the gas pressure constant during the ½-hour-long vaporization of
the silver; we are now getting it to 5%. On the other hand, clean measurement of